Dear Family and Friends,
My Dearest Sweet Mother,
I am sorry for the lack of emails the past few weeks. I just have time to email the president and do some other missionary responsibilities and write me mumsy and a few other people and then the time is up! I tell my mom a lot of the things that are happening though and so I don´t know if she shares that with you all or what.
I am sure my mom has mentioned that I got transferred and am now in El Talar with my new companion Hermana Fullmer from Idaho. She is a great missionary and only has 7 weeks in the field and is doing great! We have an investigator named Evelyn and she was going to get baptized last Sunday but her mom passed away and so she had to go super far to see her and couldn´t be baptized. It was a hard time but with the help of the Lord and the things that He has given us, we were able to get through that obstacle with Evelyn and she is doing better now. We had a great opportunity to re teach her the plan of salvation and about temple work. I don´t know how I would have hope in this life I didn´t know of the plan that God has for us and that all people can be saved physically and spiritually through the love and grace of Jesus Christ. It is a privilege to be able to teach people this truth and see the hope that they receive from it! So we changed Evelyn´s date to yesterday the 17 of NOv and we had everything ready and prepared and everyone was so excited and then we got to church and the lights did not work which meant that the water didn´t work and so we couldn´t fill the font. In fact, we only had sacrament meeting and then the bishop said to head home because the light didn´t work and neither did the water for the bathrooms. First time that has happened on my mission! I couldn´t believe it! Once again we had to postpone Evelyn´s baptism. It has been really hard to see someone be so ready for baptism and not be able to be baptized. All these things that are happening and have happened have tested our faith and trust in the Lord and have also tested the faith of Evelyn as well. She told us the other day that every time she is going to get baptized something happens and she can´t but that she is not going to give up because she knows this will change her life. She is so powerful and so strong and has been converted by the Lord. This Saturday she will be baptized for sure! I have been able to see the hand of God through this experience and although it has been a hard long road, it has been a blessing to see the Lord strengthen us and our investigators through these trials.
I just have a few minutes to write about another amazing experience this week! Elder Holland and his sweet wife came to speak to us on Saturday! We met in a capilla in the west mission and so my comp and I had to wake up at 3:00 am in order to get there on time. It was a long process but a fun adventure haha :) It was an amazing and powerful meeting as you can image. Elder Holland was just as blunt and powerful and loving in person as he is in conference, and even a bit more! We were sitting about 5 rows from the front. His wife spoke first and oh my goodness what a gem she is. There was a translator of course and she was so cute because she would try to say a few things in spanish but gave up because it was to hard. She was so fun and sweet. She talked about the importance of having the light of Christ in us in order to help others come unto Him. And that the way we can receive that light is my giving glory to God and showing our gratitude to Him. Elder Holland spoke about many different things and I would love to share them all but don´t have time so I will share what I enjoyed best! I believe that some of his talk came from a previous talk of his called missionary work and the atonement but I am not 100 percent positive. He talked about how our missions will not be easy and should not be easy because we are teaching people how to receive salvation and salvation is not a cheap experience and is not easy so our missions will not be easy. Jesus Christ lived a perfect life and His life was never easy. So of course we are going to need to experience pain and hardships in this life as well. Here is a quote that I really liked from him."Each of us have a little cross to help us remember the Big Cross." I am thankful for trials. I know I have not experienced too many great trials in my life in comparison to many other people that I know but the small trials I have had have taught me more about the grace of Jesus Christ and His atonement and for that I am grateful. I know that we all need to have small crosses in our lives in order to help us understand the cross that Jesus Christ had to bare. I know that He is our salvation and will always help us. Trials help us become closer to Him and develop a stronger relationship with him and they help us gain a more eternal perspective because that is where we find hope; in the eternal things. I love my Savior and I know that He lives! All of your examples have helped me in my life and I am so thankful for all of my friends and family and the things that you are doing to build the kingdom of God here on the earth! Love you all and hope you have a great happy week!
Con Amor,
Hermana Syphus :)
First I need to apologize to you as many times as you will allow me to. I am SO sorry I didn´t tell you happy birthday on the 9th! Oh my goodness you have no idea how bad I feel about that. I really almost started crying when I realized what I did and I am so sorry mom. What an awful daughter to not tell her mom happy birthday! I remembered that it was your birthday the night before and was not going to forget to write you happy birthday but obviously I did and I am so sorry. :( I love you so much mom and I promise I always remember you but my brain was just in a different world! Man I hope you can forgive me. :( So what did you do for your birthday and how was it?
Also, Happy Anniversary to you and Dad! I am glad you are going into town together and hope you both have a great day! I really do have the best parents that I could ask for and am so thankful to Heavenly Father for that blessing.
So some news about this week:
A little more about my comp haha. She is completely different than me but we get along so great and that shows me that God can help anyone love anyone when it is His will to put them together. We already share clothes and food and such haha :) She is a fashion queen. Image the type of person that has 74 pairs of shoes, every color of skinny jean, get´s money from her parents for whatever she wants, won biggest flirt in High School...and that is my companion haha :) She is still a bit in the world which is understandable because she is new but she really is so great and loves to work hard. I love her so much. She knows this area well which is a great blessing and I am so thankful for her. Some things are hard but there are always a few hard things with each companionship. We work well together I feel. She likes to show me pics of her and boyfriend Tanner who is on his mission in El Salvador like Erik! She is fun and sometimes I feel like we talk about things of the world too much and am trying to be more strict but loving with things like that in order to help her. She is a great missionary though and although we are very different I respect and love her so much for the decision she made to leave the world and seve a mission. It is kinda fun to here about her life and then see her as a missionary. God really does help us so much on our missions to change and become better people!
Oh!! SO guess what? Hernan got baptized in Congreso yesterday!!!!!!! Such great news and I am so happy!
Oh and one more thing! I received a small package from Adele Clark with some stickers and gum and mints and letters from people in the ward and was wondering if you could tell her thank you so much for the great surprise! Let her know that I am so thankful and that it was so so sweet of her to do that and that I received great comfort from the letters! Another blessing! Love you Mom
I don´t think I need anything yet. My hips are starting to hurt a bit from walking I think but I am sure it will pass. I am doing great otherwise and am really enjoying my mission. Something really neat happened the other day in fact. I was just thinking about my mission and the time I have here and thought to myself that even though I love my family and my home and even though I still do get homesick a bit, that I got to that point that I don´t want to go home. I mean I have never wanted to go go home, but this feeling was different. It was like feeling like this right now is my home and it is my life and I don´t want it to change. It is hard to think about my life not being a missionary and I really want to do it forever. It is so hard but I is the best opportunity and I only have one purpose here and that is to help others come unto Christ. I feel so good and so happy and I really do love my mission! I hope I can do something worth while with this 18 months of Heavenly Fathers time. Well I think I want to write a mass email and hope I can get it done! So I better leave you, even though I would just love to type and type to you all day :) I wrote a little note to dad. Thank you for the news about the Bennetts. Wow what an experience that they have had. What an incredible family. I love them so much and am so happy for them and the things that are happening in their lived. I will sure miss them though. I hope Braquel will be alright. That is so hard I bet. She is amazing and so many people will be brought to Christ through her love and works. She is in my prayers and thoughts! That was great to here about the missionaries that are about to go out in the ward! And Nathanial has a Brazilian girlfriend!?!? Wow that is great news and I am so happy for him! Hope things go well! What about my brothers and their futures? Any news about them and their lady friends? Well ma I love you so much. Thanks so much for everything. I can really feel the prayers of the family and know that I am so blessed to have the eternal family that I have. Love you all so so much! Con Amor,
Kates
Buenos Aires Mission Conference with Elder Holland.
Katelyn is on the 5th row on the left with an orange sweater.
It was fun to see her :)
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