April 21, 2014

HELLOOOOO! okay so i forgot my ipad. therefore I forgot everything i wanted to say because i write reminders of cool things sometimes. BUT alas I SHALL TRY!

okay SOOOOO!

my new companion!!! HERMANA PEREZ!!! she is SO FUNNY! and SO FUN!! hahaha i love her, we get along a little too well I think, It's so hard for us to focus, BUT! we are taking the work really seriously and both want to work hard and be exactly obedient to the END! we go home on the same plane :) COOL HUH!!! hopefully we just have these last three transfers together, that would be awesome.

We made our bedroom a parkour gym. hahaha we just moved our beds in different shapes so that we have to do parkour over them to get to the bathroom and to get on the ground to pray. it's pretty fun. but i'm starting to be like this... "oh i have to go to the bathroom!......... oh man... i'm too tired to parkour right now.......... i can wait." hahaha BUT! We are going to get really good!

anywho. so yeah. good stuff. Hna Meldau moved to bradenton even though that means nothing to you! she's happy, so i'm glad. me and her came a LOOONG way! we both admit it, and I'm way grateful for everything I learned with us being companions :)

ANYWAY. 

this week was awesome. 

we had a church tour with the guy named Hector, and it was great!!! let me just say this.... :) in the closing prayer, he was like, please help me to get baptized into this church and learn to follow the rules!" and me and hna perez both opened our eyes and just looked at eachother with dropped jaws, hahaha, we were like what the?? it was awesome!! but..... he called us after that and invited me to the movies and we said we can't go as missionaries.... and he hasn't talked to us since....

BUT! it's okay! because he probably just had a busy easter sunday with his family. hahaha more updates on that LATER!

also we had the COOLEST EXPERIENCE EVER!!!!!
oh my heeeeEEECKKKKK!!!!!!

I want to be an MTC teacher real bad because of this. I had already wanted to! but now. it's like.... a firm desire. haha 

there was a mini MTC for all the youth, and we were the "teachers" and we were able to kind of train them and teach them and help them learn how to teach a lesson and use the spirit and all this cool stuff, and OH MY HECK. seeing these kids prepare themselves so much. there was a tri-panionship of boys, and I was helping them figure out a lesson plan, and they were kind lost and having a hard time and they ASKED PERMISSION if they could go and have a companionship prayer.... what?? i just thought that was really cool. they were dedicated and they weren't even missionaries yet! haha and you could see the spirit work through them just because they had prepared and worked out. MAN if only everyone would just put their whole hearts into things like that, then the spirit would be able to help us SO MUCH MORE. we get WAY too worried about what others are gonna think about us, and wanting to be cool, yada yada yada. WHATEVER BEING COOL IS FOR DWEEBS!!! just kidding, because you can be cool AND be smart! ya know? you don't have to lower your standards for anyone or anything, and you can still love people and have fun. DON'T GIVE IN TO PEER PRESSURE! haha it's super lame and I just feel really passionate about this right now for some reason!

okay ANYWAY. so yeah that was pretty neat.

hm lets see... okay sometimes, it is really sad out here. seeing so many people turn away from the gospel, feel the spirit, and then back away, or just not give it a chance. I cannot express to you all the anxiety I feel sometimes for these people... haha! Just like nephi, how he cried himself to sleep all the time for his people! and jacob I think who could hardly even write because he was so anxious about their wickedness, I do not feel it to that extreme... BUT! I feel it. It is hard. and it is a burden. sometimes your heart just aches. There was a lady we were talking to, she wasn't christian, but she asked us if our purpose was to just convert people and stuff! and i was like..... uh... yeah! haha pretty much! and she said man why don't you just leave people with their beliefs alone if they're happy..? and It made me think! I was like... we respect anyone who doesn't share our beliefs, and we don't force anything. but man, asking me not to share what I have with others.... that would NOT BE GOOD! 

You guys, we have something different. we have the priesthood, and I don't leave people alone because that is truth. and TRUTH IS TRUTH AND IT DOES NOT CHANGE. it cannot change, it is eternal and infinite and real. and we have the truth, the apostles say it so boldly, and the prophet, and people when they bear testimony, you might not know it for yourself and that is okay. you might just believe it, and not be sure, and that is okay, you might not know if you even care to know, or if you even believe in God! we are all at different things in our life when it comes to our beliefs, I just want to testify that truth is truth. Whether you know it is truth is dependent on the work that you put into it to know. Sometimes God requires more work from you than he does others, and only he knows why. but truth exists whether you act on it, believe, and search for it or not. do not give up that search, do not give up the fight to find light. or to share light. 

I have been so fascinated with light lately, and SO OBSESSED with it's qualities and it's strength and like i mentioned in previous emails, that darkness in no way can overpower it. darkness exists, but if you have light, it will overpower the darkness. the ONLY WAY that there can be darkness, is if light is absent, or has dimmed, or turned off. we have light within us, do not let your light dim, because darkness will creep in. you can't be in the middle, when your light dims, darkness comes. so keep your light strong, fight for it! LIGHT!!! i love light :) 

EVERYONE! this life is hard sometimes! there are LOTS of questions. and trials and doubts, but just hear my testimony right now. I know that there are answers, I know that you will find peace. I know that it'll be okay.

anyway. I LOVE YOU ALL! i'm sure there were more awesome stories, but i can't remember.

time is flying. I just want to really focus 100% and give it my all... i can't afford not to. 

I love this mission life. I would give anything to start back in the MTC again and just do it all over again. 

MAN. what a blessing. it has changed my eternity, literally.

LOVE YOU ALL SOOOOOOOOO FLIPPIN MUCH!

smiling! this one is for you grandpa!! hahaha

Sis Perez is the Bomb!!