One Year to Go...

Can you believe I have been out for 6 months!? CRAZY. I am 1/3 of the way complete with my mission and I cannot believe it. It seriously has flown by. So transfer calls came this week and I'm leaving after 6 months in one apartment! So packing has been crazy today and trying to get everything in order for Sister C. I also was called to be a trainer...again. Soooo, that means that neither of us will know the area. So not only do I not know where I am going, neither of us will know who the bishop is, the area, how we will get there, etc. AAAHH. I know it gets done all the time, but I didn't think I would ever be someone who whitewashed. (That's what we call it). Anyway, so it’s going to be a crazy, hectic, stressful week! But it will be good :)

This week we had some really good experiences. Last week we went and saw our old friend. She did NOT look good. She hardly talked. She only mustered out, "I love you", "you're adorable",  and "thank you." She was having a lot of pain in one of her legs, and she was wheezing pretty hard too. So she just sat there holding our hands. It was adorable. So since she didn't talk much and she looked really awful, we sang her some primary songs. It was probably one of the most spiritual moments of my whole mission. The spirit was so strong in that room. I thought that she was maybe going to die right then, and that’s why the spirit was so strong. It was really cool, she really needed us to lift her spirits. She doesn't have much longer I don't think. We were going to go see her again this week, but she was put in a care facility. So that was the last time I will see her. :( Sad. She kept kissing my hand before we left. She really has softened up to us and we have become great friends. She would hardly talk to us before and she would never let us hug her! Now she doesn't let go of us and she loves when we come over.

We went and saw our stubborn friend on Tuesday and she was going off about how much she hated that the kids were crying in church. Sister C and I were both getting super frustrated with her and we have been thinking of dropping her, so we were about to just drop her right then (because she seriously was freaking out about it, and didn't even get anything out of church because she was focusing on the kids. She thinks church isn't a place for kids to be. We even talked about how much Christ loves kids and so forth and shared scriptures, but nothing worked). So just when we were about to give up and tell her that our purpose is to help others come unto Christ, so if she doesn't want to do that, then we need to use our time talking to people who do, she starting crying again! Man, she just looks so helpless when she cries. She then softened up and we talked about how she should watch General Conference. She said she would watch it, so I guess we'll find out tomorrow if she really did watch it!

We taught a kid teenage boy on Wednesday. He has had a rough and violent past, but he says he wants to change. Sister C found him when they were on exchanges so it was our first lesson with him. We took a recent convert with us. That was INSPIRED! They hit it off so well. This young man has a similar past and could totally relate to him (The teenage boy is 18 and the convert is 19). It was so amazing. The lesson was done completely by the spirit and it was so powerful. The boy talked about how it touched his heart and how it was super powerful and just penetrated his soul. So we talked about the Holy Ghost and such and he said he wanted more and more. So the convert testified of the Book of Mormon and took one home to mark up scriptures that had helped him in his life, and then he is going to give it to the teenage boy when he was done. They guy was so excited and happy for that! He just couldn't get enough. It was so awesome! We even soft committed him to be baptized! But he said he would come to general conference on Saturday with us, but he didn't show up and he wouldn't answer his phone...so that was a bummer. But hopefully he comes around again!

We have another girl on date as well! She is supposed to be baptized this next week! She is super cute so we are excited for that. Also we had a great lesson with another guy. We were going to teach the Law of Chastity, but then his brother wanted to sit in on the lesson to see if this is something he wants to look into as well, so we decided to teach the Restoration instead and to just focus on prophets and talk about General Conference. So it was super, super good! The brother agreed with everything and it was really good because the guy we went to teach explained a lot to his brother so it was so good for us to get to see where he is in his conversion. I thought he was doing this just for his girlfriend, but at the end he bore his testimony to his brother and said he knows this church is true and he has received that testimony from God. YES! It was SO good! We scheduled to go watch the last session of conference with them on Sunday. I love this so much! For some reason I just feel a connection with him. He is super cool and way sweet.

He says he wants us to come back after our missions and we are welcome to stay at their house anytime and we have to hang out after our missions and stuff. So cute.

I really like him so I'm sad I'm going to miss his baptism. President T is being strict about people going back to old areas for baptisms, so I can't do that :(

Anyway General Conference was AMAZING!!! I loved it so much. I especially loved Elder Ballard’s talk (do your missionary work! ;) haha but it was all so, so good. Side note: a lady from my first area died this week :( She had breast cancer and left behind 4 young children. It was super sad and a ton of people showed up to her funeral. I didn't go to the funeral but it was between the Saturday sessions of conference so we were at the church when it was going on. She was such an awesome, Christ like woman. Her family is really strong too. She died in the morning and five hours later, her daughter was in early morning seminary. Amazing family. Anyway we watched the last session of conference at that guy’s house so that was super fun. It reminded me of conference at our house though because his girlfriend’s whole family came too, so it was super rowdy. Soooo I didn't necessarily get much out of it with all the screaming kids, but it was good. We had lunch there and stuff so that was fun. We also talked to the guy who had a stroke. He is home now and we showed him a message about trials and he really liked that. It really touched him so we told him we would come back soon and share another message! He looked really good though and he had quite a bit of mobility and has made excellent progress.

We also had a "last supper" at our favorite member family’s house on Sunday night just in case one of us got transferred....and I did. So it was fun to do that! We had a BBQ and we also did an experiment. We rolled bacon into some cinnamon rolls...it was actually super good! haha that was so fun. So their son reminds me so much of Travis. They look alike, only this guy is a huge boy, and they act a lot alike too. So pretty much I still have had Trav with me for 6 months ;)

I really hate saying goodbyes and it seriously just gets worse while I’m on my mission. These people have become my family away from family! But I'm anxious to see where I am going on Wednesday and who my new companion is! It's going to be quite weird to be living somewhere else since I've lived here my whole mission. But a new adventure awaits!  I hope you all have a great week. I absolutely love being a missionary and I KNOW this church is true. I just want everyone else to know it too! (I guess I'm in the right place then huh ;) Be good and be Christ like...always! :) I love you all! :)

Working out at the playground!

Cactus!