Little excerpts......from the past 3 weeks. November 2016

I wanted to add in just a few little things from Sadie's letters to me over the past 3 weeks.  I think they are fun additions to her group emails.  Sure do love my Hermana Monson!

November 7, 2016

Mari is doing pretty well, she has a lot of pain from her disease. One day this week we felt like we really needed to go visit her, and we were glad we did because when we went over she was trying to clean her house, and she was just sobbing. We watched a conference talk with her, helped her clean her house, and put her kids to bed. I think she felt better after that. She bore her testimony last Sunday, and it was super cute! She just said that she is so grateful for the sister missionaries that knocked on her door a month ago to bring her the gospel. That was one of my favorite experiences of the week. 

The other was that we were able to do an exchange on Wednesday. I got to go with my STL Sister Kronmiller and work in her area for 24 hrs. It was such a blast! Riverside is the name of the area, and oh me word. It felt like I was back in Mexico, I loved it! Sister Kronmiller is a super boss missionary, and we were able to teach tons of lessons in one day, and it was super fun! I love teaching lessons, even if I can't always say what I want to say. I feel like my Spanish is definitely getting better, it is just so hard to remember all of the past tense conjugations! But, I'm working on it. Anyways, on the exchange we went to a super hole in the wall little Latin restaurant and got some super authentic Baleadas for dinner, oh me word. So good! It was also lots of fun because the STLs live with another set of sister missionaries, so it was super fun to be in a house with 4 people. It was kind of like having roommates again! I really hope that I can live in a house with 4 sisters at some point, it is just so much more exciting! I also loved the attitudes of the other missionaries, they have all been on their missions for a really long time. One of them goes home at the end of this transfer. It gave me hope that they all talk about how much they love being a missionary, and how they don't even want to go 

November 21, 2016

The best part of my week was probably yesterday when we were able to find 2 new investigators. On Saturday night I had been feeling super un-motivated. I woke up Sunday morning, and just prayed that Heavenly Father would give me the charity that I needed to get through the day because I knew we would be spending a lot of time knocking doors. Well, He definitely followed through because we found 2 awesome potential investigators, and the time went really quickly. 

The worst part of my week is probably feeling a little more homesick than usual with the holidays and everything. I miss you! Thanksgiving will be a normal proselyting day. We have two meal appointments with families in our ward, and I'm not sure if it will be the normal Latin food or if they will do something Americanized. Either way I will definitely be missing your sweet potato casserole, so please eat some extra for me. 

Sister Whitney is from Taylor Arizona. She went to a small community college there before her mission (doesn't know what she is studying yet), and she has been out for one year. She struggles a lot with her Spanish, so sometimes I am able to speak/understand more than her, but she is trying so hard! She's awesome! She is pretty shy, and that makes it hard to get to know each other super well, but we have fun. We are both super excited for Christmas, so we always love looking at the Christmas lights and listening to MOTAB Christmas songs in the car.!  


November 28, 2106

Ok, I forgot to write about this, and I'm not entirely sure how to incorporate it into a group email, so....

Anyways, I think it was on Wednesday? I woke up, and had to write down this dream that I had, because it was pretty amazing. 

So, in this dream I had just come home from the mission. I had completed my entire mission, but I had only been gone for 6 months (I'm not entirely sure how that works, but hey, it's a dream). It was a spring morning, and dad had already gone to work. The boys were getting ready for school, and I was helping mom cook breakfast. I didn't have anything else to do (no work or school or anything) so I decided to walk the boys to the bus stop, and mom decided to come too. 

Pretty normal, right? However, for whatever reason, I was SO UNCOMFORTABLE. I felt like I couldn't look any of you in the eye, and I couldn't talk because there was a lump in my throat. In the dream, I felt like something was weighing on my shoulders, and I had a sickening pit in my stomach. Even though everyone was super happy that I was home, and it was really good to see the family, I felt so awful. The reason I felt so bad was because I knew that I had not done everything that I could have on my mission. I felt so many regrets about the 6 months that I had served because I knew that I had only given a half-hearted effort, and I felt sick about the fact that there was no do over, and I had failed on my mission. 

I woke up from the dream like: "wow. Ok, now I know how I DON'T want to feel at the end of my mission."

I don't know if Heavenly Father was trying to tell me something or what, but let me say that I have been feeling pretty motivated since that dream.