email of 2 November 2009

Querido familia mia,
(Keh-ree-doh fah-mee-lee-ah mee-ah....means dear family of mine)

Thank you so so much for all the email last week and this week! I DO love getting on and having lots to read, but if something happens, no worries - I'm not on a mission just for the mail ;) In fact it's something I've really had to work on - not living from mail day to mail day. I do love getting mail, it just isn't the ONLY thing I love :)

So this week the questions were from Dad!

P-day schedule:
P-day is usually about as follows (except for temple pdays or night pdays, or "something else weird happened" pdays) :

Up at 615, start laundry at member's house, exercise, home, prepare (shower/breakfast, etc), personal study at 8, companionship study at 9, district or zone activity from 1030-12, and then from 12-6 to do everything else we need to do; email, groceries, wash the car (every week), clean the apartment (home-blessing:), write snail mail letters, etc. At 6 we go back to work, and work as normal. For email, we come to the library, and have 60 minutes (timed) to use the computer. I usually get on, read/skim my emails, send them to the printer and then write. When I send my little "I'm on! 54 minutes" email, that just means that I'll be only for the next however many minutes, so if you have anything else you'd like to write for me to get before the following monday, that's your time frame. We're allowed however much time we can squeeze out of the rest of the pday to write regular letters, but with everything we have to get done, it tends to go by really fast, and I'm lucky to get one or two letters written.

And that's about it. :) Sometimes we have "free pday," which means no district/zone activity, so that's some good extra time for us to do stuff. Temple pday just moves our pday to Wednesday, and night pday means that we work until 1pm, then have pday as normal, but until 9 instead of 6, usually with a district/zone activity in the evening. That's actually what's happening today.

As far as the other super-secret-ninja address, sorry Charley, but all mail's gotta go through the mission home. That's fine though - it's all part of the deal.
I AM realy excited to get the halloween package though! I should probably get it on Friday. For Halloween, we had to be in at 6pm instead of 9, and had the time to do pretty much whatever we liked (within mission rules, of course). I made soup and wrote letters (oh, AND did monthly numbers...).

I will certainly continue to send lots of prayers your way! Don't worry though, as long as you're all keeping the commandments, God's gonna prosper you - He has too; He promised. :) I just read about that this week in my personal study. And no, there's no way that I'll make it through the entire BofM this transfer...it was just a little much. I DID make it all the way through the small plates of Nephi and Words of Mormon though! And guess what? The Book of Mormon's amazing! Of course :)

We had an amazing zone conference this last week! Our President and his wife spoke, the AP's trained (we have some excellent APs -- I always really thoroughly enjoy and learn great things from their training.), two sets of zone leaders trained, and we also had a guest speaker. Brother Preston Jay Waite, who's actually the former US Census Director, came and spoke to us. He's a good friend of President Blackburn's from back when thye were both living and working in D.C. His talk was so good! He talked a lot about obedience and integrity, and the blessings that come from them. President Blackburn is one who truly has an obedient spirit, and as such is very firm about us being exactingly obedient as well. He's no tyrant or anything -- quite the contrary! He simply understands well the blessings that come from being obedient (D/C 130:20-21), and wants that for each of us individually, and for our mission as a whole. I'm coming to understand better the blessings that come from that as well, especially when we're obedient because we WANT to be, and because we love the Lord, and not because "we're 'post to" (Thank you brother bytheway).

We also have a new mission challenge to work toward that we're all really excited about! We're going to have a "White Christmas" in L.A.! We've been promised that with our obedience and sacrifice, each companionship in the entire mission CAN and WILL baptize in the month of December! That's about 180 baptisms! :) With the challenge, each district/zone will be taking pictures of all the missionaries in white, to be put up in the mission office, and with each baptism, we'll be taking pictures of our recent converts in white at their baptism, also to be posted in the mission office. It's going to be so good, and I'm really excited!

We've been seeing some really great miracles lately -- Ron is continuing to progress; he came to church again on Sunday, and is praying about a Dec. 5th baptismal date! He's doing so good, and we're so happy for him! Vilma will be getting baptized this coming Sunday, which we're also thrilled about. We took her to a baptism yesterday, and she really loved it. She's wonderful. We're just starting to teach a few different people and families who really get and understand what we're teaching, and I can't tell you how awesome that is!!! AHHHH I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!!!

I do, as always, send my love and prayers. I love and miss you more than you know, but it really is an awesome thing to be about the Lord's business in this way. I'm so grateful for the opportunity.

I Love You!
I Love Being a Missionary!

Hermana Sallie

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!!!