Familia y Amigos,
I just want to thank you all for all the love and support. This is such a hard thing to do and it's so nice to know that I have so many loved ones at home who are praying for me and thinking about me all the time. I appreciate every email, letter, postcard and package. A special thanks to my Grams, my mom and the Beehives of the Lake Creek Farms Ward for the awesome package! So stinkin' cute. Hermana Boley was like, "Well I want one." And I was like, "Your ward isn't as cool as mine!" haha. The Plan of Salvation cards and everything was just genius. Genius.
This week has been a little bit slower. A little bit colder as well. The Seattle rain is starting to set in for real. So transfers happen every 6 weeks. Every 6 weeks I have the potential for going anywhere in the mission, speaking any language. Our mission president is famous for changing everyone's language. We have everything from ASL, Samoan, Tongan, Korean, Russian, Spanish and English in my mission. I think there is also Mandarin and there might be others I don't know of yet. Hopefully I stay Spanish! I like my area just because there are so many Hispanics to talk to, but it's getting harder now that the sun goes down earlier. I don't like to be out walking around once it gets dark so we are trying to have member lessons or set appointments after the sun sets. A lot more sketchy...I have never felt truly in danger yet, but it's kind of scary when native Seattlites are always telling us to go home and that we shouldn't be walking around that late. I will be careful though. It has been a huge motivator for me to always be in tune with the spirit.
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| Yes, this is a toilet being used as a pot right outside someone's front door. Ghetto fabulous! |
We live by the Event Center and the Airport in SeaTac. This week there is some kind of comicon thing going on. Basically it is super entertaining to watch all these fanatics wear really funny costumes. Most of them look like normal people but they have these big, cartoony talks coming out of the back of their pants. Hermana Boley and I get a kick out of it!
This week we got Elders in our Branch. Can you believe that there are enough missionaries in the world that they can put 4 missionaries in one Branch? It's so awesome! Elder Lutes has been out for 20 months and his companion. Elder Suh, is a brand new greenie. This week our Branch put on a play about El Libro de Mormon. It was the cutest thing in my whole life! Especially, they had the little primary kids be the sheep in the story about Ammon! It was my favorite.
Just when I get comfortable, a new challenge always arises. This week I had 2 new challenges... hence the title of my email. Number one is that I started driving this week. It's not that bad, but I am use to small town driving where this is like traffic, city driving. Kind of stressful. Another was on Friday we spoke Spanish all day. We have an investigator, Guadalupe, who is fully prepared for baptism except that she has never been to church because she works on Sundays. We offered to do a fast with her, but she has diabetes so she couldn't fast that way. She came up with the idea to have language fast. She spoke only English for a day and we spoke only Spanish and fasted that she would find a new job, or that her boss would soften his heart and let her go to church on Sundays. My Spanish is about as good as her English so...not very good. But we all were able to do it! It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. It was just hard when Hermana Boley was giving me directions in the car and I couldn't respond back very fast. We are trying more to only speak Spanish to each other, so yeah the language is coming along.
In other news, I should probably talk about what I do all the time which is teaching people. My heart was broken this week when our investigator, Karen, dropped us. She was so solid, but she wasn't willing to give up her lifestyle to feel comfortable at church. She said she felt like a hypocrite, sinning on Saturday and then going to church on Sunday. But aren't we all hypocrites? We told her that, but she didn't want to waste our time. I don't think that was the end of the road for her though. We planted a seed and she is going to come around one day. Our investigator Virgilio is still progressing! I am praying that he will chose a day to be baptized this month. He went to a baptism with us and he has been to church 4 times. He sends texts everyday with scriptures in them! The only thing is that it is so hard to teach him because we have to find another woman to be there with us. Sometimes mission rules are hard to comply with, but I know they are their for our protection.
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| The Burien Sister's baptism of Blanca Elder Song, Elder Newman, us, Sister Nielson, Sister White, Blanca |
We got to go to the Women's Session of General Conference at our stake center. I loved that it was centered on temples! Love, love, LOVE! We get to go to the Seattle Temple in December and I am so excited! Before General Conference, I hope you all will write down some questions you have. Not just gospel questions, but personal real life questions and pray about them. Then enjoy watching conference! Receive some good ole personal revelation. I know it will bless your life. This is my challenge to all of you for the month of October! I still love all of you so much. So, so very much.
Week 13 Challenge:
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| 2 Nephi 31:10 |
Con Amor,
Hermana Stoddard
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