Dear Family,
I am having too much fun right now! I think everything I learned about Seattle before my mission were lies. It is so gorgeous and the sun shines all the time. I especially love it during these summer months because the sun is in the sky when we go walking/running in the morning and it is still out when we go in around 9:30. It's so great! But it is a little on the hot/humid side right now.
I live in Bellevue. It's the closest I am going to get to serving in an actual metropolitan city as a Spanish missionary. Bellevue is the headquarters for basically every company imaginable...casi (almost). I love both of my companions! Hermana Brooks came out on her mission only a transfer behind me and we are both Sister Training Leaders. She is really good at Spanish so I am learning from her. Hermana Christiansen is outgoing and our sunshine. This is only her second transfer so Hna. Brooks and I are training her. We are already good friends and often suffer from laugh attacks...of course very dignified laughter:) Let's face it, they think I am funny. But that's ok because I think they are kind of funny too.
We are crazy busy! I think that and the sun and all the blessings and miracles that are happening right now are making me over-the-top happy! We have six Spanish speaking Hermanas that we are STLs over so we have to drive around the mission to visit them and do exchanges. We are over an English ward (the Overlake Ward) and a Spanish branch (Crossroads branch). That means double the investigators, meetings, members, everything.....it's so great! My Spanish isn't as bad as I thought. I still understand basically all of it, but it still is really hard to speak it. I have definitely improved even from 5 days ago. I am starting to pick it up where I left off. And I love it. Not to be racist or anything, but Hispanics are my favorite:)
I love how every ward and branch has such different dynamics. Microsoft pretty much employs the whole Overlake ward. Not to get all worldly on you guys or to offend the people of Overlake in anyway, but picture the people from The Big Bang Theory. I have only seen 1 or 2 episodes of that show, but that can kind of help describe the people. They are so great and have such strong testimonies of the Restored gospel, they just express it differently.
We are working with a few investigators in the English area right now. One of them is an Indian gentleman named Shawn. One word to describe him is classy. He fed us Indian pizza and mangos while listening to Christmas hymns. We told him we could only listen to hymns and the Christmas ones were all he had. He does everything with flare and style. He has so many Mormon friends and is prepared to live the gospel. Something was holding him back, but we didn't know what it was. We went over to talk to him while we were fasting for him. We were going to talk to him about fasting, but the Spirit lead the conversation and we ended up talking about Christ and the Atonement. It turns out that he didn't fully understand what the Atonement was and we answered a lot of his doubts. We hope that he continues to change enough to start making and keeping commitments.
The Hispanic branch here is much more....modern (that's probably the best word to describe it) than the branch I served in in Seahurst. They are a little more Americanized. We got to play volleyball with them Friday night and futbol (soccer) with them Saturday morning. They are really good about bringing their nonmember friends to activities and it makes our job easier and a lot more fun! They were some of the best finding activities that I have ever had.
But some of the biggest miracles of my mission have happened right here, this week! We have found and started teaching three Hispanic families that are so incredible, so, so incredible. All of them have moved here within the last month as well. All of them have relatives in Mexico that are members of the church, and we can feel the power of the prayers of those relatives as we teach these new investigators. All of it is the Lord's doing. He placed all of us perfectly at the right place at the right time. La Familia Chavez came to church yesterday, and I already have such a deep love for them. Pray for them y La Familia Sanchez y Manuel y Paula! I am so blessed to know and work with these people! This week I studied about the creation. It just made my spirit feel full of light and pure joy. With that and all of the blessings this week, my heart is full of gratitude and I challenge all of you this week to recognize the blessings in your lives. Share them with your families at dinner time and say a prayer afterwards as a family and thank our loving Father in Heaven for them. I know that He lives and that He cares for us individually.
Con Amor,
Hermana Stoddard
P.S. Random side note: Almost my whole mission has been saying similar things about me:
1. I have an accent (but they don't think the other Utahns do).
2. That I look like Kiera Knightly.
Haha I just think it's so funny because I have never heard these things until my mission, but I hear it all the time here:)
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