Week 37

 Dear friends and family,

I just found out I have been on my mission for 250 days today. That is

a long time! Seems so crazy. My halfway point is in a couple of weeks,

but I don't think about that so much. We are "always in the middle"

(Pres Uchtdorf)... and I don't want to think about coming home yet.

The work is going excellent out here. Harry is getting baptized this

Saturday! He is 73 and has such a cute family who will be so blessed

by this. His wife, Yaneri, is like 36 and has been less-active pretty much her

whole life until recently. She is on fire and wants to get to the

temple. They met in Honduras, where she is from, and have a 4-year-old

named Ashley who is SO cute. I LOVE their family. In the weeks leading

up to a baptism, you spend a lot of time finishing up the lessons,

checking in with them, helping them learn how to keep commandments

they struggle with, helping them prepare for the baptismal interview

and the ordinance itself, planning the baptism, getting members

fellowshipping them, taking them to the church history sites if you can, and in this

family's case, helping them pack up because they are moving soon. It

has been so fun to get to know their family. Yaneri speaks a little

English and is mostly deaf, but she is SO sweet and wants to live the

gospel with everything she has. She makes a lot of sacrifices and they

are at church EVERY week even though she doesn't hear/understand most

of what is going on. Sister Brown and I have started sitting next to

her in at least one meeting each week, writing down what the lesson

is about and answering any questions. It has been so wonderful to grow

to love them and serve them so much.

We are also working with a lot of women in the ward who have each

dealt with different hard trials in recent years and are trying to get

to the temple... either to get back there, or to go for the first

time. It has been such a blessing to feel the Lord's love for them and

to see their determination and sacrifice. I know that temple blessings

are worth ANY sacrifice, and it is wonderful to be able to work so

closely with these women in their desires to come to the House of the

Lord and to feel the Spirit and the blessings there.

Something interesting about being full-proselyting right now is that

Sister Brown and I are the only sisters in our zone. That is probably

pretty normal for most missions, but we honestly don't have that many

more elders than we do sisters, so in the North Palmyra zone for

example the elders are outnumbered. We work really closely with the

elders especially since we overlap areas with some of them, and it has

been really fun to be able to see these young men doing the Lord's

work and honoring their priesthood. The priesthood really is to serve

others, and even though these elders are young they are really

learning what it means to perform selfless service. We were blessed in

a simple way by their service this week, and I just wanted to share.

Our apartment has had one A/C unit all summer. It's in the bedroom,

which makes sleeping okay but doing anything else very warm. We have

tried getting another unit, but they aren't being sold anymore this

season I guess so we got an upright fan instead which mostly just blew

the hot air around. It was up to 86 degrees in the front room the

other day, and the elders caught wind of it. The other day, we got a

call that said they found an A/C for us and would be over in 10

minutes. It was fabulous; our apartment dropped 17 degrees in a day

and a half. We later found out that they had given us one of their

units, and that they now have a very hot front room! Despite all our

efforts to give it back, the unit is staying... but their example is

something I will remember even after it gets too cold for A/C.

Last thing. Our mission has a goal for each companionship to talk to

10 new nonmembers each day. The promise is that if we do this, we will

have 3 new investigators a week, leading to one baptism each month.

Turns out it is really hard to talk to 10/day when you have as many

appointments as we do, but we are trying by setting smaller goals to

work up to it. It has been amazing to see how the Lord blesses us as

we set goals in faith and then plan how we will accomplish them. Our

plans very rarely go through, but because we made the plans, the Lord

helps us to realize our goals. There have been many times when I know

that people have been placed in our path while on our morning run or

in line at the grocery store because the Lord knew we had desires that

we wouldn't otherwise have time to fulfill. The same thing with lesson

planning---we've had SO many lessons this week that we planned for and

ended up having to change last minute because of circumstances we had

no way of knowing about...  but because we planned, the Spirit filled

our mouths and we were able to teach with power. These experiences

have led to commitments, emotion, and progression with those we teach

that I don't know how we would have otherwise achieved. It is such a

testimony to me that He really is aware of us and that when we give

Him our all, He can magnify our efforts to what He needs.

The gospel is true! We are happy when we work hard to do the Lord's

will. I love the Book of Mormon because I know that it brings us the

strength and peace we need, no matter our situation.

Have a great week, all of you.

Love you mucho!

Your favorite sister missionary :)