Sisters pday, arepas as a district, awesome lessons, workout updates, member meals, and a BAPTISM!!

 Large Plates 

Sisters pday, arepas as a district, awesome lessons, workout updates, member meals, and a BAPTISM!!

Another good week! I hate to say it again but this week really did fly by. I feel like I was just writing that same thing in my email like 2 days ago haha. Pday was fun! We got a bunch of sister missionaries together and got our nails done and went shopping and got smoothie bowls. After we did all that we went to have a barbecue with the Elders but it started pouring rain out of nowhere so we just got soaked instead haha.

We taught our district how to make arepas! We all had lunch together after district council and it was such a good time. Also it turns out Elder Jensen wants to open an arepa truck at BYUI so we decided to just make a chain of food trucks together haha. All of my post-mission dreams include arepas for some reason.

We had a couple of really awesome lessons this week! We had our first in-person lesson with Ana and her boys. Those boys are so smart. They're just a super sweet family. Also we started teaching this lady named Iris! It's cool because that's my grandma's name. (Hi grandma! I know you're reading this so I thought I'd throw in a shout-out for you and grandpa. Love you both. We also had a super powerful video call with our new friend Osman. I won't go into too much detail but essentially he has heard of baptism and the Holy Ghost before but has never really known what they are. We taught him about them and told him the spirit would confirm to him the truthfulness of our message and it would tell him if he needed to be baptized. We could tell he was very impacted by what we said. He sat back in his seat and basically just said "wow." The spirit was so strong and we could tell he was feeling it too. He was physically impacted by it. He could hardly hold still. I don't know how to describe it but it was awesome!

We've been trying to get more exercise because our morning workouts consist of going on a slow paced walk with a senior missionary and we don't want to make her feel bad by stopping the walks, so we haven't gotten any cardio or strength training in months. But! We moved our dinner hour to the last hour of the day one day and we decided to go on a run before we ate! It was so refreshing to get real exercise. Later that night our District leader suggested we all work out in the church gym the next morning… Long story short, I'm sore but I'm sleeping so well! 

We went to dinner with a member from a different ward at this yummy Mexican place! Hes funny but he's crazy. Also he got bit by a shark. No joke his arm is all messed up now. Also we ate at a different members house and he fed us blood sausage so that was fun...

Also Liduvi (the knocking miracle from a month or so ago) came to church! And Fransis and her boys! They're all so awesome and I'm excited to see them progress. 

The highlight of the week was ANDRES' BAPTISM!!! He's such a sweet kid and he really wanted to be baptized. It's been a long time coming. He's super smart and really good at the piano! Also he wanted spicy cheetos at his baptism so you KNOW we bought him some. Also those yummy sugar cookies with the frosting and sprinkles. His baptism was a little chaotic cause the primary was having an activity in the room we needed to use but it all worked out!

Small Plates 

Where can I find happiness?

We've had a couple of lessons with this guy named Robin. He used to be a professional soccer player in Venezuela but he got hurt and hasn't had good luck in his soccer career since. It's a sad story. 

But the saddest part is that his entire life has been consumed by his disappointment. It's all he thinks about. With every principle we teach him, he interrupts to tell us more about how he could be famous but he's not. He even interrupted us when we were talking about Joseph Smith's first vision. We said something like "and he decided to pray. When he prayed, he had a really cool experience." Robin interrupted to say he thinks he's had really cool experiences from when he was a professional soccer player that Joseph Smith would like to hear. Long story short we didn't teach much of a lesson, we just let him rant. 

But the central theme of his rants is always the emptiness he feels because his expectations were unmet. He says he feels like there's a hole in his heart that he doesn't know how to feel. 

He would never let us talk long enough to suggest that maybe the emptiness he feels isn't going to be filled by fame and soccer, like he hopes. Hopefully we'll be able to tell him soon. 

The idea behind this thought isn't really about Robin though. It's about what I learned from him. Or rather, what I learned through him. 

The only source of true and lasting happiness is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Any happiness we find through worldly things is temporary. Even professional soccer players who don't have career-ending injuries have to end their career sooner or later due to old age. Any worldly success we want can only bring us happiness for a time.

But the gospel of Jesus Christ will always bring us joy. It brings children joy as they sing songs about prophets and rainbows and Jesus. It brings young adults like me joy because it gives us direction and strength in this scary world. It brings parents joy as they raise their children in faith. It brings even the most elderly joy because they have no fear for the future. They have their families and know those families will be theirs forever.

If you're disappointed by unmet expectations, and feeling like something is missing, my best advice for you is to make a little more time in your life for Jesus. He always has and always will be the most constant source of joy in our lives. And all the other sources of joy we have ultimately come from Him too. Christ heals all wounds and all sorrows. He knows how we feel in any and every moment. And he knows how to help us through the tough stuff. We just need to turn to Him and allow Him to help us.

Another transfer in the books

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Exchanges, which was basically just me working alone for a day. A bunch of good lessons, a chaotic English class, and transfer news!

This week was crazy busy, as usual haha. We had exchanges on Tuesday which I was honestly kind of dreading. It was my turn to stay in our area and Hermana Morris went to the STLs area. That doesn't sound too bad until you realize that our STLs don't speak Spanish. So basically I was going to be alone for the day because all of the work we do in this area is in Spanish.

It didn't end up being too bad though! We had our studies in the morning and then went over to our friend Elissa's house! She's a little old lady in a wheelchair because she got her leg amputated a couple of years ago. She ended up not being home, so we started knocking her complex to see if we could find the neighbor family she always tells us about. We didn't end up finding them, but we found this really sweet Egyptian lady! We were able to teach her the restoration lesson right then and there and she seemed very grateful! I'm not sure if she understood it all, but she was nice! She said she would love a Book of Mormon, in Arabic if we had one, or in English if we didn't. The crazy thing is we literally found an Arabic Book of Mormon in the car the next day and we stopped by to give it to her! There's 1 sister in the mission who learned some Arabic in college so she had a couple Arabic books. And our car used to be hers. What a miracle! The only car in the mission with an Arabic Book of Mormon ended up being the car in this area. Super crazy!

We ended up talking to a bunch of people all around the complex, who were just out and about. It was fun to be able to have a one on one conversation with them in Spanish. It felt more personal. Although Sister Char (our STL) had no idea what was going on haha. It definitely felt like I had the gift of tongues that day. I understood all of them completely, even though their accents were some of the thickest I've heard.

We also went to a Hispanic Supermarket to try to find new people! It was kind of the same situation, where I did everything and Sister Char was just there. Of course I don't blame her at all haha, there's nothing she could do. It's just kind of different from what normal missionary work is. But we found a few people: couple who wanted to go to church, a little family who wishes the world valued the nuclear family more than they do, and a sweet lady who wants to teach me how to cook with green bananas! Overall it was a very good day but I was definitely glad to have Hermana Morris back. 

We also had our last lesson with Wendy and had her baptismal interview this week! She's all ready to be baptized! I'm super excited for her. She's so sweet. Later in the week, we went over to her house again to teach her son Andres and we put him on date for baptism too! They're going to get baptized the same day! 

We also taught Fransis and her sons and they are the BEST. She's seriously so golden. We taught the restoration with a hands on activity for the boys and she would listen to us explain it and then basically teach it to her sons in a way that they would understand and internalize it. She has such a special spirit and feels like family. I love her and her family so much and I have high hopes for them.

English class this Sunday was so fun. We normally hate it (sorry but that's the truth), but this class was full of laughter and smiles. We had a full classroom & Elder Boatman was teaching the lesson. All the students were laughing at his accent, and he was laughing at theirs, and everyone was laughing at themselves too. It was just very chaotic. Once he finished the lesson, he asked us missionaries if we had any ideas about what else he should teach with the rest of the time. I suggested he help them learn the difference between though, thought, through, taught, and all the other words that look or sound like those. One girl had a question about that last week. Needless to say, the chaos magnified haha. 

We also got transfer news this week! Hermana Morris and I are staying together! WAHOO! It's going to be such a good transfer. We really have a lot of good traction right now so we can hit the ground running and keep hustling this whole transfer. I'm excited. We did also find out that Elders Boatman, Bell, and Seeley will be leaving the district, which I'm sad about, of course. Elder Boatman especially has become a really good friend of mine. He's just a funny kid (and kind of reminds me of Addison haha). But that's mission life! So many hellos and goodbyes all the time haha.

Small Plates 

A lesson from my future mission president.

We're getting a new mission president in July, and he seems really awesome! His first language is Portuguese (although I can't remember if he's from Portugal or Brazil…) and he's currently in South Africa serving as a General Authority Seventy! Super cool stuff! He actually spoke in the last General Conference, and I studied his talk this week.

It's called Faith to Act and Become by Elder Ciro Schmeil (soon to be President Schmeil!!!). There's so many gems in this talk you guys. It's impossible to pick a favorite.

Basically the essence of his talk is that in order to become a good husband, wife, father, mother, friend, or whatever other role we want to include in the list, we must first become better disciples of Jesus Christ.

But how do we do that?? The first step he suggests we take is to ask. "We need to ask in faith to know the will of the Lord and accept that the Lord knows what is better for us." I really love that last part. If the Lord knows what's best for us, why would we want anything else? God is our loving Heavenly Father and he wants us to be happy. Let Him help you be as happy as He knows you have the potential to be.

The next step is to act. "As we act, He will guide and direct us along the way." Sometimes we don't have all the answers and instructions right at the beginning, and that's okay! The Lord has our back. It was the same with Nefi. If he were given a list of instructions, it probably would have looked something like this:

What to do: go get the plates 

How to do it: ______

He didn't have much to go off of, but he went anyway! We can do the same. Right now, my list of instructions looks like this:

What to do: serve a mission

How to do it: _____

I don't have a lot to go off of either. But I'm here and I'm trying and that's what God wants from me. And that's what He wants from you. For you to act in faith and trust that He will help you become who you need to become. 

Elder Schmiel then suggests that we study. 2 Nephi 32:3 says, "Feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do." What a promise! The scriptures contain all the guidance we could possibly need in this life. All we have to do is search them, study them, and love them. 

The last step is to Act to Become. Essentially this just means we need to do the first three steps every day. We have to make becoming a part of our lives. A part of who we are. 

With that routine, we will have all the guidance and direction we need to be happy and successful in this life. And more importantly, we have all we need to become who we need to be. Because when all is said and done, and this life is over, not much will matter. It really comes down to who you are. 

So who do you want to become? 

Valentines Package from mom!