Tender mercies :)

So today was a rollercoaster but I had the greatest tender mercy from one of my former companions. On the mission I had helped her along the road to recovery with gaining weight again. She has a eating disorder and it was with me that she started to gain weight again and learned to be happy with it. Since being home the stress has been really hard on her and she's lost some weight. Most of our correspondence now has been recipes to try and such. Tonight she told me she is seeing a nutritionist for her eating disorder. The amount of pride and love I had when she told me about this swelled within me. I almost started to cry. I was so happy for her. I can kind of relate in some ways because I struggle to gain weight mostly because of my metabolism. I know I was meant to be a part of her life and she a part of mine.

AND yesterday I saw that on of the companions I got super close with came home and I got to talk to her on the phone for a few minutes. I am so proud of her for fulfilling her mission. She had a super difficult time for a quite a while, but she came out on top. In fact, our transfer was her do or die transfer, she either was able to work to her fullest ability with me, or she went home. Despite her anxiety, she improved leaps and bounds and became the missionary everyone knew she could become.

I know the Lord had me go on a mission, not just for the sake of going, but because I had people I needed to meet, and people that needed to meet me. I know that the Lord puts us exactly where we need to be when we follow His direction. I leave these things wit you in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Learning a lot but not nearly enough

In missionary prep class and the lesson was mostly role play and the teacher made a couple of really good points during the lesson: the missionaries are supposed to develop the gift of discernment in questions (read the question within the question, aka find the eternal question within the mortal question) and members are vital to missionary work. In our role play the teacher was an investigator whose wife just died and he had questions about life after death, but his unspoken question (which was technically spoken because it was just a role play in a missionary prep class) was whether he will see her again. Through a member (whether they be a friend to the investigator or they just came) we can infuse life experience into our testimonies and lessons so that people will find more common ground with the gospel, rather than just hearing it from a couple of inexperienced people barely old enough to vote. There's a lot that goes into missionary work and there is a lot we can learn about people and how to deal with them from serving a mission. I will be learning so much. I am very excited to serve in the Seattle Washington mission. I know God loves each of us and as we serve his children, we will grow closer to him. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Mission Call

I AM GOING TO THE WASHINGTON STATE SEATTLE MISSION!!!!!