“whose father?” “OUR FATHER!”

okay family. time to buckle down and write this email. title courtesy of the Alcoholics Anonymous meeting we went to yesterday. But more on that later :)

tuesday was blessed because we had district meeting, which i love, and got to visit the n family, whom i also love, so go figure :) also, watch for t n in the 2024 olympics. this girl is a swimming beast ;) also, they read preach my gospel as a family every night, aka awesome :) :) they're seriously so cool haha i'll tell you stories when i get home :) :)

quotes from dtm: [sorry i forgot my pmg where i usually write them so i only have a few]

elder benny phelps, zone leader (remember him from the mtc?) :)

"no thanks, i've already had food out of a bag today." (......? apparently they categorize their food based on what it comes in. hahaha.)

"lately when i pray in the morning and at night, i've been putting forth the extra effort and i choose not to stop praying until i feel different or better than when i began." i thought that was cool :)

also, pretty sure he's a future AP. sister blood & i are calling it ;) [#missionarymarchmadness] 

so in case you haven't noticed, lately i've been a teeeeny tiinnnyyyy bit stressed about coming home hahaha. but i've discovered a cure. FOLLOW SPIRITUAL PROMPTINGS. aka if you've been feeling recently like you should read your patriarchal blessing, you probably should because it will probably make you feel TONS better. which is nice of the Lord, to prompt us to do things like that ;) so basically i tore my patriarchal blessing apart in my journal and set tons of goals and it was lovely and now i am WAY less stressed so hooray for following da Lord :) (voice of fabian from the district 2) ;)

also on tuesday night i had a dream that i was home and you all were being WEIRD but i was being super duper patient and loving hahahahaha so hopefully that dream comes true ;)

thursday i got my flight itinerary; that was weird. but luckily not too traumatizing because i had followed the spiritual prompting to read my patriarchal blessing. or something. :) we also had dinner with the B and I love them. Quote from President B: "This has been my favorite winter! Nothing is wet! It's all frozen!!!!!!" (said with soooooooo much happiness & joy <3 <3 <3

Friday was a fun day....... we got to go to doctor's offices!!!! hahaha. #1: life is very inconvenient when you do not have a smart phone or the internet. but we survive. using ghetto phone services like TellMe #idonotlike. but anyways. we survived. :) also, going to the doctor as a missionary = weirdest thing ever. because no one understands who you are or what you do. but it's also awesomeeee because you get to tell them!! hahah :) :) :) so some fun moments from friday:

- checking in at urgent care, we tell the receptionist we're not employed, we're missionaries. "you're not not employed, you have a job!" hahaha thank you my friend :) 

- nurse: "dr. b will be in in a moment" me: "hey, don't we have a former investigator with that last name? how weird would that be?" --doctor-y things-- ~dr. b leaves and gives us a sheet that has his full name on it~ ... me: "no way." it is him. the former investigator. who somehow failed to mention that he's previously met with missionaries hahaha. but he DID know that we don't drink, smoke, or use caffeine! hahaha :) "you don't even drink caffeine, right?" ummm sure. close enough ;) 

probably the weirdest thing about sister blood and i is that we are weird best friends who are allllwaaaaayyyysssss together. so they're asking her all these questions and i'm correcting her at times or adding things or whatever, and the doctors are confused by how i know all these things. "how long have you known each other?" "3 months" [actually only like 2 1/2] "..... you're pretty close......" hahah :)

Friday was alsooo the ward "linger longer" activity, which was AWESOME because soooooooooo many people brought their friends!!!! and we had a literal hastening the work i'll go where you want me to go video moment with little m s literally dragging his neighbor over to meet us hahaha so cool story, his friend is down to read the Book of Mormon..... awesome right??? #hasteningthework #membermissionarywork #inviteinviteinvite :) :) :) 

oh but also, we've been keeping a "headache log" together hahaha and i'm quoting best two years every 5 minutes..... "should i write that down??" :) :) :)

basically, she's a trooper, and we're keeping our spirits up. we're hopeful for the future :)

SUNDAY was a great and wonderful day. i even wrote in my journal about it ;)

here's the thing: i just really love church. i love that when i'm tired and wimpy, church is there to be like a power pack of strength and boom the Spirit just lifts me back up up up :) :) :) 

also, this quote is for you dad: "it seems like the Lord calls the crazy lunatics to work with the youth." [said to president m, your counterpart here in the mke south stake] ;)

scripture of the day for this upcoming tuesday: alma 56:32. a million points for you if you can figure out why ;) 

also, scripture chain courtesy of the brilliant and spiritual sister melanie blood: 2 Ne. 32:3 / John 6:35 / Alma 32:42. When you feast upon the Word (Christ), you will never go hungry agaaaaainnnn! (okay, sorry to ruin it, but i just heard that in the voice of scar from lion king. not sure why it's taken me that long to put it together.) J

in other news. Sunday was great. i love fast & testimony meeting. i love that Romans 10:17 is true. (faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.) hearing others' testimonies strengthens my faith. I feel the Spirit and it reminds me -- "you know this. this is true happiness. remember?" and then i say oh yeah, i remember :) :) :) and i love it. i love to go to Church. it's a choice! i could stay home and be like "ehhh i'm not really feelin' it today......." but then my faith would get weaker & weaker & weaker. instead, we press forward with faith, trusting that a power-pack of spiritual goodness is "just around the riverbend!" (apparently i'm in a disney music mood today...........) ;)

anyways. that was great :) 

and THEN we went to my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting!! hooraaaaaaayyy!!! :) :) haha. it was actually super great. we went to support my dear friends j & m, and it really meant a lot to them..... i was actually surprised at how much it meant haha. they were speaking at an "open meeting" they called it, and then we stayed to hear the last speaker because sister b knew him and wanted to hear :) and it, was great. just reinforced my testimony once again that the gospel changes lives. there IS a strengthening and enabling power that comes only from Christ's Atonement, and we call that grace :) :) :) and i just love it. favorite quotes: 

"God is the driver, I am the passenger, but sometimes I lean over and say, "weren't we supposed to turn back there??"" hahaha #yes #aboutme ;) :) :)

[talking about his relationship with God] "Now I can't shut up about it because I'm so excited about it and I'm so excited for everybody else to get it!" :) :) :)

also, they had like a raffle ticket drawing between speakers and they were like, "we need people with high moral standards........... you two ladies!" weirdly sister blood and i both felt like we were invisible? well, we were not, so your friendly neighborhood sister missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ (never forget that it's Jesus Christ's church!!!!!!) of Latter-day Saints got to pull the raffle tickets :) :) :) and then at the end we all held hands and said the Lord's prayer. which i only vaguely remember. but it's a good prayer. :) starting with: "whose father?" "OUR FATHER..." hahaha #lovedit :) :)

also, the AA meeting reminded me a lot of like Alma 36:18 / Alma 22:18. the last speaker said at his lowest point he prayed (for the first time), "I don't know who You are, what You are, or if You are. but I. need. help." :) i just really loved it. lives can change, people! i know this for a fact. i hang out with changed people every day :) heck, i'm a changed person! and it's really, really, great :) :) :)

i guess that's really all i had to say. just that i'm grateful for Church. I know that it's true. i'm grateful for truth. i'm grateful we can know it. i'm grateful for a prophet!!! fun fact: there is a prohpet in israel :) (2 kings 5:8) :) :) 

i just love this missionary life. and i love you all. amen :) :)

happy fat tuesday / march 4th this week!!! :) :) i love you bunches. one of the strongest points of my testimony right now is that we can be a family forever. :) i was doing the christlike attribute activity this morning and one of them says, "one of my greatest desires is to inherit eternal life in the celestial kingdom" and i'm like yep, definitely, yes, because i love my family and i would like to be with them forever. :) so thanks for being awesome. thanks for being an anchor to my testimony :) :) :)

love you times infinity

xoxoxoxoxoxoxox

seester cecelia proffit :) :) :)