Dearest most wonderful family and friends,
I will address the subject of this email first before I forget like I did last week. As it says, we endured another blizzard. 2 days of snow! And it stuck for a couple days! Winter wonderland in April... Good thing my family is awesome and I have boots and warm tights and a warm coat and gloves! Crazy. Just ridiculous. And THEN.... Yesterday it was like 65 degrees and I was dying of heat! What is this madness? What happens when (if) I ever go to El Paso where it's 110 degrees! I'm going to melt! And here I thought I loved the heat and being warm. 65 degrees felt like an inferno!
So since Wednesday... Let me try to recall. Everyday feels like all the other days. I can't keep track. The rest of our substitute Pday was great. And snowy. Nothing of real importance. Thursday we went to ABQ again for a trainer/trainee meeting. It was pretty good! I like to be around more missionaries that have no idea what they're doing sometimes, like me. haha. Some members drove us down which was insanely nice of them. We got some cool news at that meeting. There will now be sister missionaries with leadership roles. Kind of like zone leaders, but sisters. There will be a companionship of "training sisters" who will go on exchanges a couple times a week until they've gone on exchanges with every sister in their zone. They have more responsibilities but I'm not clear on what they are yet. Cause it's new news and I don't think everyone is on the same page with it yet. But that's pretty awesome right? More power to the sisters! Anyway it was a great day, even though most of it was spent in a car driving to and from ABQ.
Saturday morning was a very sad morning. A couple weeks ago, a baby of an investigator of the elder's passed away of SIDS. She was 8 or 9 weeks old. She was soooo cute, so tiny! She looked like a little porcelain doll with perfect skin, big blue eyes, and tonz of fuzzy black hair. A friend of that family who got baptized in October and loves the gospel who came from VERY rough circumstances (as has the family of the baby who died) gave the eulogy. It wasn't like a eulogy you'd normally hear. She got up, with her rough voice from years of smoking, hands shaking as she read from a torn envelope, sobbing as she spoke. You've never heard anything like it. The love that she has for that baby and family, the hope she has from the plan of salvation, the heartbreak and grieve in her words... it was the most tender, heartbreaking, hopeful moment I think I've ever experienced. A member then gave a talk on the plan of salvation. It was incredible! And there were mostly nonmembers there, so it was a great missionary moment for her. After that, everyone lined up to give the grieving family hugs. I cried so much... it was soooo sad. The mother sobbed through the whole thing. There's a picture I'll send of the back of the program. I made a really sloppy sketch of the view that I had at the funeral. The back of the mother leaning on the shoulder of the family friend/member who gave the eulogy. In front and a little to the right there was the table with a vase of roses, the box the baby's ashes were in, and a photo of the baby.
The rest of that day was great. Towards the end, anyways, We had planned to go see like... 5 people. But no one is ever home on Saturdays! I had gotten a little discouraged. I kind of just turned off my brain and went on auto pilot, not really thinking anything or being present. Later I had the thought which is similar to something President Monson said: "Time is a gift to be treasured and used wisely in the moment, not to be put aside for the future." Something like that, I'm paraphrasing. I shouldn't endure just to get through it... cause we were walking around, it was cold and windy, not having the greatest time, but not dwelling on the negative. Like I said I just kind of turned my brain off. I should endure with PURPOSE! If that makes sense. It does to me anyway.
A highlight of our coldness was we stopped at a yard sale. I got this wicked native american patterned vest, a necklace, and a really nice sweater for dirt cheap. Thrift stores and now yard sales are my weakness!!! AH! Anyway, that night we had dinner with all the families on the hill. Our message was about missionary work. We decided to have a testimony meeting about missionary work. Everyone shared a story or an experience and it brought in the spirit so strong. A lot of us were in tears. I was humbled, I definitely needed it. A couple people (missionaries included) bore testimony about not being perfect missionaries. I had this grand idea that missionaries were so awesome and disciplined and spiritual giants. But a harsh reality hit when I found that wasn't the case, especially with the elders here in Taos. I even said to my companion a day before that I didn't look up to them as missionaries. I thought they didn't rise to the occasion or take being a missionary seriously, they didn't act as if the Savior was always in their presence, obedience isn't a priority for them. Their conversation consists of guns, cars, and.. you know. Things boys like to talk about. But when I heard testimonies that a missionary is a missionary, they're out here with a testimony of Christ and desire to share it, that's what matters. No one is perfect. My expectations were unrealistic. I just thought that everyone should take it as seriously as I do, cause I came from literally the best of circumstances. Raised in the Gospel, come from the strongest family I know, I have amazing relationships with all of them. And obedience is one of my strengths. I think of the Savior often and try to do what He would do. But He wouldn't judge them. And not to say that I'm perfect, I'm definitely not. I have a lot to work on too. But they are missionaries. I shouldn't just DEAL with them, I should try to HELP them and be an example. Cause right now all I can do is not talk to them because they drive me insane and anything I would say would not be in sync with the spirit. My patience is getting a little tiny eensy weensy bit stronger every day which I'm grateful for. I won't stop working on it until it is my greatest strength. Summing that up... I was humbled. I need to see everyone as a child of God. Even the missionaries who I hold to a higher standard that don't impress me. I can worry about me being the best missionary I can be.
So Church was awesome! Always is. The speakers talked about... MISSIONARY WORK! It was awesome. Church is awesome. Then we went to lunch at the Thomas'. We always do on Sundays. They fed us well. So the combination of being realllly full and the scorching heat of 65 degrees and still not being used to not taking 4 hour naps on Sundays = reeeaaaallllly tired. We were teaching a less active elderly lady from the PUEBLO (awesome, we got to see the actual Pueblo part with the 2 giant adobe mansions, made me think that's probably something like the civilizations of the Book of Mormon lived in). She lived in a smaller adobe home with a fireplace on the inside... with a fire in the fireplace... I was dying. We were there for an hour and a half. BUT I held my own, I made it though, and we survived the day! Sundays are awesome. They're the only day of the week that I can differentiate from the other days of the week because we go to church. The rest of the week is all smashed together cause every day is the same. At home I knew it was Monday cause I had council meetings and FHE, I knew it was Wednesday cause I'd see Laura, I knew it was Friday cause I always looked forward to them cause they were Friday Forums. Saturdays were awesome cause I could sleep in. You get the idea.
This week should be good. Our teaching pool is growing! So we will be doing lots of teaching, hopefully, and we have some service planned. And we should be able to have a better schedule to stick to. Last week was crazy with going to ABQ twice and having district meeting rescheduled and the funeral on Saturday morning... This week should bring consistency! Which I'm a huge fan of.
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