Querido Familia y Amigos,
If you are wondering what the soggy waffles are I am referring to, it is not a reference to food...it is a representation of what my companion and I looked like this week. Hermana Boley disagrees and thinks that we look more like drowned rats....fabulously dressed drowned rats. The weather has turned into the Seattle that I have been hearing about. Grey skies. Very, very grey....like there is no sun grey. And rain. Loads of it! There even was a nice hail storm while we were tracting some trailer parks. Luckily there was a nice Hispanic family that let us come in so we wouldn't be pelted to death. We tried teaching them and singing to them, but the hail was so loud on their trailer that they couldn't hear us. So it was just an awkward moment of smiling at them. If you want to be a missionary, you just gotta learn to love those beautifully awkward moments. And to whoever let me believe that it's not in cold in Seattle, it's all lies!!! I'm freezing ALL THE TIME!!! But don't worry, I sleep with 2 pairs of socks and every blanket in the apartment. I wear tights, legging, socks and boots. I don't think I thought it through fully when I got my mission call. I guess rain+winter= a frigged cold sister missionary. But it's all good. So grateful to have a car!!!
Something rather funny that happened this week was Hermana Boley breaking and entering. These two girls were locked out of their apartment and they were trying to get to a window that was about 8 or 9 feet off the ground. Hermana Boley is always so willing to help other people, so she just scaled up the side of the wall in her boots and climbed through the window to unlock their door. The girls were laughing so hard! They didn't think a 'nun' could do that. They were all like, "Where did this chick come from?" I said, "I don't know what they teach kids in Wyoming!" hahaha!
The most fulfilling thing this week was having one of our less active members, Monica, come to a lesson with us. She made the lesson. We seriously couldn't have done it without her. At first we were worried that she didn't have a testimony and would be uncomfortable sharing it, but she jumped right in and bore a beautiful testimony about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. Members are so important during lessons. They are so hard to arrange and it causes major stress, but if it all works out, it is so worth it!
The most exciting thing that happened this week was that all the Spanish missionaries in our mission got permission to go to a part of the annual Spanish Conference. It is a cultural and spiritual all day conference that the Seattle, Everett and Federal Way Missions do for all the Hispanics in the area every year. We went to a Fireside, a dinner and a cultural talent show and had so much fun! About half of the Hispanics in Washington are Mexican and the other half are from all over Central and South America. It was so cool to see all of them in traditional clothing and dancing in the styles indicative of their country. So beautiful. You know that I was in 7th heaven! Pretty much the whole Relief Society of our branch did a dance performance together. Those chicas can move! It was such an amazing experience and I am so grateful that we got to be a part of it. I am looking forward to traveling after my mission to Central/South America to speak to those people in Spanish. Let me know if you want to come with me!
The thing that touched me the most spiritually this week was something I learned from the fireside. "What we do out of habit creates who we are. Excellence is not an act, it's a habit." We aren't perfect, but we were sent to this Earth to practice being perfect. We need to receive personal revelation often and strive to better ourselves daily through the Atonement in order to achieve our divine potential. It's a rocky road. That's what it was designed to be. This Earth life is the refiner's fire. We all were just rocks or lumps of coal in the pre-earth life. We had to come to Earth to be put under extreme pressure and heat. But we still have our agency to chose whether we want to be squashed to become shards of black dust or to change and become something beautiful and pure. We all chose this course because we knew that it would be worth it to become a diamond.
This mission isn't easy either. I just tell you guys all the good parts. This whole experience, especially the part about exact obedience, has been really hard for me, but I am already experiencing many changes for the better and so many blessings.
Dios les bendigas.
Week 17 Challenge:
Con Amor,
Hermana Stoddard
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