email of 19 October 2009

Dearest, Darlingest Mumsy and Popsickle,

FIRST of all, someone needs to tell my big, older, slacker of a brother, who, to protect his identity I'll refer to simply as "the Rolo", that I would like to hear from him more often than once every 3 months, and would be willing to accept his apology in an email next Monday afternoon :)

...Because I LOVE and miss and want to hear from and all about Sam and Suz and Buster and their lives!!!!!

That's all.

Now on to the rest of the email :)

This is going to be a little on the short side because I read and wrote a few other emails first, and only have 17 minutes left.

I LOVE YOU!!!!!

I just needed to say that.

I've had a pretty good week here in Downey, CA. The weather has been really weird though - it was really nice -- sunny and hot as usual, then got downright chilly! And I was thinking, "how nice -- some real FALL weather!" It even rained and everything! And THEN, two days later, it was almost 100 degrees again! Ick. Oh well, it's all good; the work continues on! Appointments, lessons, study, referrals, Spanish struggles, tracting, splits, dinner appointments, planning, finding and teaching God's children that He loves them and has a plan for them...Yep, that's the life of a missionary. I need to take better advantage of my time with a native Spanish speaker, in an area with a fair amount of Spanish. It's hard though, and I know that I tend to get a bit lazy. Learning Spanish in the US is hard because there's just too darn much English! We hear and have a lot of lessons in Spanglish, which is pretty funny, and I definitely need to work harder at getting out of my comfort zone and speaking more Spanish. It's coming, but not as quickly as it could.

Remember Hector? The one with the awful house that we cleaned about 2 months ago, who stole the scriptures and was meeting with the missionaries? HE GOT BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!!! I so wish I could have been there, but we never actually served in the area, even though we helped teach him a few times, so we couldn't go. I was talking to the sisters though, and they said that it was beautiful! He's been going to church pretty steadily for the last 2 months or so, and finally got baptized! And it really is amazing what a different person he is now. He even painted their house! In the words of one of the sisters there, "It's downright cozy!" now :) The Gospel is AMAZING!!!

I've been thinking a little bit over the last few days...just some questions that have crossed my mind that I don't totally have answers to yet, just that I've been thinking about. And for no particular reason, here is a piece of the inside of my head:

What lack I yet?
What motivates people?
Why here, why now? Why am I here seeing what I'm seeing, meeting who I'm meeting, learning what I'm learning, having the experiences that I'm having? What's the purpose in it? Just what is the Lord trying to teach me and prepare me for? What is it that I need to learn and do?

Missions make you think.

I LOVE hearing from you every week! Mom, congrats on the sunbeams--that'll be so great, and I know you'll love it!
Keep up everything good, and leave behind all the bad!
Heavenly Father is real, and He loves us all!!!!!!!!

I love you!!!

I love being a missionary!!

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!!!!!