Hellos and Goodbyes

I love the weekly sigh I make before each weekly letter I write...literally so much happens in so little time, its incredible. 

So I have my new companion Hermana R. now and she is really great, for the like 4 hrs we've been together. I met her in Ceiba, she was "born" there one transfer before me, so we practically have the same amount of time, so we'll see how that goes. We're both senior comps so that is a little strange, but we'll see. She's from Nicaragua and seems to be pretty happy, chill in some ways and really intense in other ways. Pretty sure I'm going to learn a lot of patience and humility and obedience this change. I trust the Lord and I trust President Klein. Turns out my hija, Hermana V. (did I mention she liked to put her toothbrush in the freezer? I totally thought it was a joke...) got transferred to go open an area for Hermanas in a zone of just Elders! It's in Trujillo which is like 9 hours away. So pretty much everyone I'm close with has been sent far away. It's hard, I feel deserted, but it's part of the mission. The other new Hermana in the house is a gringa from South Dakota, Hermana B. She is super sweet and has like 7 months. So it looks like things will go well because they were actually comps before and I get along really well with Hermana Vi., the other Latina in the house, so we all get along! But I'm excited to have someone I can learn a bit more from as far as the mission goes since I was always with someone with less time. I think this will be really good, but really hard. We'll see if I leave after this change, since I'll have 6 months in this area...who knows, I just know I'll give it my all, because I basically asked to stay in Santa Rita and I want to finish strong :) I never would have thought I would ask to stay here haha. It was really hard to say goodbye to people at changes, especially when I don't know when I'll see them again. But I'm realizing that sometimes "hello's" can be just as hard as goodbyes because youre accepting someone into your life just like your letting someone go for a time...

The song "Homeward Bound" went really well and I felt really good about how I played! I left a few notes out to simplify it in the moment but it was so good and President said it sounded like a lullaby. I loved having the opportunity to play it. 

I've loved realizing that I can actually make other people laugh in Spanish. It's the best feeling. I never thought I'd be able to do that, but one time I remember we were visiting a less active and she yelled to one of her kids, "Bring the black water!" and I was like "Just as long as it's not coffee" and apparently she thought it was funny. She was talking about Pepsi. It turns out, it's cuz they really do drink it here like it's water. But it's a great feeling to make people laugh in a language and with a humor that's not even your own. 

A few weeks ago the first night of divisions, we came back to the house to find a dead bird shoved upside down onto one of the pointy things on our gate around the house. So scary. We all got really nervous but nothing like that has happened since. Only that a hurt bird was found near the house of a member a while ago...we're being careful though.

Everyone is eating mangos here lately since they're starting to madurar (ripen). It's fun :) They like to eat them raw though when they're green. Can't bring myself to do it.

I've started to begin to feel more sadness for people when they don't accept what we have to offer them (the truth) when I feel like I used to just get frustrated. I feel like they give in to so much here, they trust random people that walk up into a bus and start asking for money saying some random kid has cancer, but they don't accept that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the Church that Jesus Christ established here when he was on the earth. It's interesting that they won't accept something from two innocent young girls, but it's because salvation never was easy!

We were all asked to read "The Fourth Missionary" by Lawrence E. Corbridge for the multizone conference and I would recommend it to everyone, even if you aren't a missionary. It is so good and so impactful. It's true that none of us is perfect and the Lord calls us to be us but to improve. 

I really liked the verse from Matthew 10:22.  "And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved" I wouldn't say we're necessarily hated by a lot of people, who knows, but it just made me think of my issues I've had with the ward saying junk about me. People will talk and say things but those that endure to the end will be saved. And more and more I'm remembering what Christ did in all these situations, he was filled with charity and never yelled or hit anyone or thought bad about people, you just keep moving on and rely on Heavenly Father. 

We were walking to go eat Mexican tacos after changes, us sisters and the zl's here in Santa Rita when the dueño de la casa is driving along in the busy streets of Progresso and he ended up taking our luggage all the way back for us to the house so we didn't have to lug them around and on the bus again. Miracles happen all the time, I just need to recognize them more often as miracles and less as "little blessings" because they really are miracles. I love the mission. I love it to death. I'm grateful for everyday here. It really is a privilege to serve.

Love,

Hermanita Despain

Welcome to Changes Week....Dónde Siempre Hay Sorpresas....

So everything has pretty much changed thanks to a little noticia we got this morning that my companion has changes. My companion has changes?! Who guessed that?! So I'll be saying goodbye to my hija Hermana V. I feel bad about what I didn’t teach her, what I didn’t help her with, I just hope I did something for her...I hope she learned more from the parts of my good example, from my smile, the sort of "enjoy the time we have" sort of attitude I feel like I have here in the mission, and that she learns obedience from a better missionary. So I feel like I've failed in a lot of ways, but I know Heavenly Father loves us and that He has a plan for each one of us. But if I look at the big picture and see that she is still here in the mission, I guess I want that horrible of a trainer? Ojala...President came to our sacrament meeting yesterday which was a great success and we got to have lunch with him and his wife afterwards. Of course we all wanted to know who had changes and who didn’t, so he was sort of giving us little hints and messing with us, but it was fun! So turns out our ZLs are both staying even though one goes home in three weeks, and there will be three hermanas leaving from the zone, so 2 new hermanas here in Santa Rita. Things are about to get really interesting...but it's ok cuz the 4 Hnas de Santa Rita are making t-shirts with all our inside jokes :) I'll send pictures! I'm really going to miss all the fun times we had together, the times we cried together and yelled and screamed and were crazy and all the times we felt the Spirit together and learned together. President talked a lot about how he does the cambios and how it is a real pleasure, how he does it all with prayer and fasting and a lot of guidance and thought. He mentioned how he thinks not only about our lives in the missions here, but about our futures also when he does it all...very interesting.

Ronny is back!!! I haven't ever wanted to actually hug someone here in Honduras so bad haha, but we called him the other night to see if he had come back from Tocoa and he said he would be returning Sunday and that he probably wouldn’t be able to make it to church but at that point I was like "don’t even worry about it Ronny, you’re great, just get back here so you can get baptized!" Of course I didn’t say that ;) But we sort of walked up to the back area of the house and we were like "buenas??" and he came running out of the shadows with some of his friends and it was like seeing an old family member! I havened smiled so much in a long time. We asked him how he's been doing and he said it was just great, his time in Tocoa. We asked him how things have been going with him reading the Book of Mormon but it sounds like he is really doing well and that he has been sort of off and on with reading. So we have a cita with him today, we'll see how he's really doing :) I felt like Alma in that part of the Book of Mormon where he talks about the sons of Mosiah and how he mentions that he was so happy to see that they were still his brothers in the gospel (Alma 17:2-4) so I think there is some real hope with Ronny!

This week was a little rough again as far as the work went because the fair is still here and then there was Carnavál last night...so our numbers took a hit and they just weren’t too pretty. But we ended the week with a few really special visits.

We got the chance to teach a dad and a son last night. And I'm not talking about like a dad of 20 and his 5 year old kid, but like a 50 year old man with his son of 30. It was really special, the feeling that we felt with them because you just know that there have been good times and bad times between them...fights, arguments, hurtful words, but also really good memories, birthdays, graduations...but despite whatever that happened in the past that we don’t even know about, it didn’t matter, and there we were talking with a dad and a son, both grown and living their lives. So we decided to focus on faith, and enduring to the end and not just the end of the week, but the end of our lives and then for eternity. What I love most though is when we established the fact that this less active member, the son, hadn’t been visited by missionaries for about 16 years. That was really special and I felt really good about the fact that we had made the effort to visit him even though for the past 16 years and counting he hasn’t come to church. We left it that he would work to improve his relationship with Heavenly Father by increasing the frequency and sincerity of his prayers. So we're taking baby steps, then he might take that jump and come back to church. I love that there both named Rolando :) As a companionship sometimes we walk away from lessons feeling differently but both of us loved that lesson, just sharing our feelings about gospel principles and helping a father and his son to improve and change their hearts.

We went to go visit the couple that has been having some serious issues since she cheated on her husband...the good news is that they are still living together. But that’s about all the good news there is...because as we started in on the lesson, he started to complain again about how his wife had hurt him and how he's only living there for his kids and everything. We felt so helpless, like what were we supposed to do? Ask him to stop talking? In a way we could have but I just tried my hardest to listen to the Spirit. When we got to the house everyone seemed happier than normal so that was great but as soon as he started to talk it just plummeted and the mom left to make food and ended up crying in the back doorway and I left to go console her and apologize and let her know that it want our intention to have him say those things or bring things up again. When we were trying to share with him and his kids. I felt like we needed to talk about forgiveness and charity, but I couldn’t remember where the scripture was about charity that my companion had shared only like two days before. Without even mentioning anything to my companion she opened up to the scripture. That has happened a few times in my mission, that I feel like we need to share something specific or we need to challenge someone to be baptized or that we need to bring up a new topic and a lot of times, without even saying anything my companion will do it! I'm thinking that's the Spirit maybe...

So yeah we have the transfer meeting this Wednesday! I'm super excited to play "Homeward Bound"! I practiced with the Elder last week after the multi-zone Conference and it sounds AMAZING. Hahaha I'm super excited and I feel really good about it! I'll record a video of it when we practice it before so you all can watch it and listen to it! Have an amazing few days, I'll be back to write this Wednesday in the afternoon!

Con todo mi amor,
Hermana Despain

Not as Good as God

This week's email will be a little different. I won't go into details, but I've learned a lot about putting God first in our lives. It's something we preach all the time. People start to put their work first, their studies first, their family first....and they're all good things, but they're not as good as God. When we start to put other things before God, we're trying to do things out of order, not in His timing, and things just don't go as well. I think it has to do with pride too. When we're prideful, we think we've got things handled, that we can take care of things. But we will always need His help, no matter how confident we are. We will always need His guidance. There is a difference between independence and being independent, but humble and dependent to the whisperings of the Spirit. I've learned I'm not perfect but that it's a good thing to desire to be perfect, or we're not working for anything worth working for. I've learned how words of love and support penetrate more than harsh words.

I'm grateful for the friendships I have here and for all the things I've experienced here in Santa Rita...It's only my second area but I feel like it will be my hardest. But because of that I have learned so much. But it happened, I love Santa Rita, maybe not as much as I love Ceiba, but it has a special place in my heart. If I'm called to leave here I'll be heartbroken, but I'll go where the Lord needs me. The girls in the house are incredible and we'll be best friends forever because of everything we've gone through. The mission is incredible because it has such a power to change your life if you let it.

My mission president shared this quote by President Benson with me and I really, really love it...

"Men and women who turn their lives over to God will discover that He can make a lot more out of their lives than they can. He will deepen their joys, expand their vision, quicken their minds, strengthen their muscles, lift their spirits, multiply their blessings, increase their opportunities, comfort their souls, raise up friends, and pour out peace."

These next few weeks will be really interesting, exciting and really challenging. I'm making lots of improvements and trying to be patient with myself and trying to love myself. We have a multi-zone conference in Progresso this Wednesday so that will be exciting! We'll also have President here this coming Sunday for our Sacrament Meeting so we'll be working hard this week to invite everyone to church and make some changes with our investigators. I'm happy to be with my companion. She's teaching me love and patience. I'm grateful for her. I'm grateful for the chance to train. I've learned more from her than I have from myself. The Lord trusts us and others trust us and that's probably the worst feeling in the world, to lose someone's trust or disappoint someone. But if we stay down after we fall, we haven't learned anything about falling. So we have to get back up and learn, try something different and improve and be patient with ourselves. I'm grateful for the challenges I have in the mission and I'm just plain grateful to be here on the mission. It really is a privilege. There are good things in the world and people to love, but nothing is as good as God and His love he has for us.

Love, 

Hermana Despain

Best Mother's Day Ever!!!

I hope everyone had a fabulous mothers day yesterday, I did! It was such a fun thing to be able to Skype home yesterday. I miss my family all the time so to finally see their faces and everything was just so great. It makes all the hard times worth it, all the stress, all the sad times worth it. You remember that you won't be here forever and that the mission does come to an end. So you have to make it count! I liked what my brother-in-law told me, "Don’t count the months, make the months count!" Cuz sometimes knowing how much time I have left motivates me and its good, but other times it's an easy distraction. But I left the Skype calls feeling of course, really sad that it will be a long time until I can call them again, but really really happy and motivated to work hard and give it my all. I want to improve my obedience with the schedule and my personal study of the New Testament and I got a helpful reminder from my dad to study Spanish! It's like I tell my comps, you have this great time set apart now for a year and a half to study English, without so many distractions of the world, so why wouldn’t you take advantage of that? Too bad I won't listening to my own advice! Now I just have to make sure the motivation sticks and that I don’t get into saying, "this studying starts tomorrow..." like "our diet starts tomorrow!"

So for my 9 month "anniversary", we worked and then (I hate saying worked, makes me feel like we should get paid, I like saying served better but its whatever) we went to the park to see if the Mexican taco man had his stand up! And he did!!! He is super, super nice and you still feel good after eating the tacos. You don’t feel all grasa filled or anything. So we got some Mexican tacos to celebrate and then we got licuados. so that was fun cuz we had a pretty rough day. Me and my comp are getting along pretty well. She is pretty down to earth and is generally really happy so that’s good.

Oh we got permission to drink water while we fast. Finally! I thought I was gonna die! Cuz I was honestly concerned when we had to fast and not drink water. It's just not smart if missionaries get dehydrated during the day, anyways...

We had a run in with a nuevo that was drunk. It was like 4 in the afternoon?! But he started to follow us and we just kept walking and he was asking us a bunch of stuff and normally we just ignore them, but then I felt like we needed to give him a little bit of attention. so we were just like, "Yeah, yeah, we'll come visit you during the week, is that okay? We'll see you. " And then he walked away. So I talked to my companion after about how sometimes we have to give them a little attention or they might do something...so little things we learn throughout the day.

Something funny that I remembered that my comp before, Hermana O said one time was about a lady that we found out was supposedly into witchcraft....so we were planning what to teach the hermana, when I asked my comp, "la apostasía?" and she was like "más la brujería" and I just died laughing! My comps have all been super great. All pretty different but similar in a lot of ways and I’ve learned a lot from each one, whether it's patience, how to love the people, how to work...stuff like that :)

Our investigator who has been in Tocoa this whole month who was actually so close to baptism should be back in like two weeks so we're SUPER excited about that haha. We've been suffering without him and all his incredible progress!

So like I explained a while back, a lot of people here can't read so before we hand over a Book of Mormon for them to read a verse, or the himno to sing along with us, we have to ask if they can read. It's really humbling actually. Sometimes I feel like that kid from Newsies that had to ask before he handed out the flyers in his gorgeous New York accent "Can you read?" so just know that I do that like 7 times a day, probably more, ask people if they know how to read. So if you can read, you’re really blessed because these people are so limited not being able to read. But they’re very humble. I’ve come to relate a little bit with Heavenly Father I think, if that’s not like sacrilegious in anyway, because as we work with these people that don’t want to come to church or aren’t ready to receive our message yet, I understand a little bit more of how it must be to have this universe and work with such imperfect people. And we only talk with a few like 30 a day probably and He has an entire universe! But it’s a great learning experience.

A few weeks ago I got the depressing news that there are some members that hate me. So that was....really nice and helpful. It got me really down as much as I tried to ignore it. Here we are doing what we can for the members and the investigators and just everyone here and you’re trying to balance everything and still take care of yourself and then you hear people hate you and it's just like, "Seriously, what are we 12?" Cuz I know I'm here to serve these people and focus on my investigators. but I had to remember what we tell people all the time, to not worry about what other people say, that it's about your relationship you have with Heavenly Father. It doesn’t matter what they say, what look they give you, cuz in the end it doesn’t matter. After that we were having a hard time finding the motivation to work so calling home was definitely "overdue". It was so nice to talk to family and remember that I am loved and cared about :) In honor of Mother's Day I just want to give a shout out to my mom who honestly is the best. There aren’t words to describe how I feel about her. Especially now being so far away, I have grown to have such an appreciation for all the things she has taught me, about the gospel, about life in general and about how to be strong but patient and to be happy through trials and hard times. She's the best blogger out there and the best missionary mom. I couldn’t ask for better. I wish I could’ve hugged every one of my family members and future family members, but one day :) Algún día :)

Love,
Hermana Despain!

Waiting to Bless Us

Things have been crazy here as far as the weather goes. normally its super hot, that will never change! But the polvo (dust) here is nuts. Cuz when it doesn’t rain it just tornadoes in the streets and you get these huge winds of polvo in your face. but! We had come back from lunch one day and I was getting my water from the fridge when I heard this big boom and felt a shake in the house. normally its just the pigeons. I'm not even joking! We have a ton of pigeons that hang out near our house so they land on the house at random times and it sounds like rocks landing on the roof, but this time it wasn’t a pigeon. it was an earthquake! So I felt the shake and I was like "that’s weird..." I called out to my comp and I was like "hermana????" So we went outside to see what happened and our neighbors across the street told us it was a "temblor" or like a little earthquake. Everyone was fine though, just something exciting :) It's neat though to immediately feel yourself worry about other people, other missionaries, the dueño of the casa, the other hermanas, your investigators who live in houses of tin and wood, or cinder blocks. Just proof that you learn to develop charity :)

So we're realizing a lot of people talk a lot about the bible here but they don’t know much about it. We'll ask people if they know where it was written and they all just get these blank stares or people will try and throw a bunch of bible verses at us and it's like "ok hermano, esta bien, donde esta esta escritura?"...."fijese que no recuerdo..." but it just helps us to help them learn more about the bible and where it was written and how it was written by and for what purpose.

I can’t remember if I told you guys but we had a past investigator who had a super weird cat. Poor things back feet were like turned around 180 degrees so it basically looked like a cat both ways....it makes no sense but he said it was born like that...weird stuff goes on here in Honduras....but they opened a gym here in Santa Rita like a month ago so we've been going every other day! It's hard to get up at like 6 everyday but it's always worth it! I’ve never sweat so much in my life but I love it, I feel so great afterwards!

So I’ll be playing Homeward Bound in the change meeting and an elder will be singing! It's the first time I’ve ever done anything like this so I'm super nervous but I'm excited! The song is really, really pretty and it's one of my favorites. Definitely a sad song but worth it. Here it is! Enjoy!

For some strange reason I went like a full week with ganas de lavar todo (desire to clean everything). I washed all my clothes and started like looking for more to wash. I love washing my clothes by hand to be honest. sometimes it’s a pain but I’ve learned to love it!

We're getting a hang of the new way we're needing to count those we have with fecha (set baptismal date), progressing, new and future. What we've done to help us is make a picture of four mountains and make slots for the names of the people that go in each category. It's so much more organized and easier to see the results and where everyone is at. It was an idea I got from an hermana when we did divisions this past week! It was great to get divisions out of the way, early in the change. I like them, and I learn a lot, but were with our companions for a reason.

We were waiting for Hermana A.in a pulpería one day in the afternoon to go with us to make some visits (yeah, we went and did visits with our recent convert! MY recent convert! it was the coolest thing :) She’s so direct and humble) when the guy we had been visiting in the pulpería offered us some 7-Up, so we were drinking it and I was trying to talk with him a bit and see how he’s doing and why he never came to church, all that, and we were talking with other people who were outside too, that was neat. I love realizing how "unscared" or fearless I am to talk to people. Like it feels really natural to just start talking to strangers. More so in Spanish, so that’s definitely a blessing. But then I had the little white plastic cup of 7-Up and there wasn’t much left so I decided to try and drink it with no hands, too bad the cup tipped way too fast and I ended up with 7-Up all over my face and shirt....yeah :) Haha only like two of them noticed and just smiled, then another that didn’t see was like "¡Qué bonitos son los ojos!" and I was thinking, "¡No, no not now!" Hahaha as I was trying to clean the soda off my face, I felt like such a dork but nothing like having soda all over your face to feel humble :) We ended up sharing a bit with them about the church and about the Book of Mormon. I love spontaneously sharing with people, without it needing to be such a formal lesson because that’s what real missionary work is...it’s the spontaneity and that’s the real test, being able to be natural about the work to where it's just second nature to start preaching and testifying. So we waited for a while and ended up having to go with her another day because she got scared of the thunder, poor lady. They call her "parito" cuz she’s so tiny :) She’s been doing really well, still strong with her testimony and the Book of Mormon, just has an issue sacrificing her tortillas for church. Darn tortillas. Heavenly Father comes before tortillas. He will provide if we obey the commandments. That’s all there is to it. Anyways so we left with her another day and it went really well! Too bad my stomach started hurting soo so so bad. I almost couldn’t stand up, I couldn’t even sit, it was horrible. I didn’t feel like I was going to throw up but it just hurt. so we ended up needing to go back to the house so I could take some medicine but it was good for Hermana A. I think to just go to a few citas and see what it was like :)

Photo courtesy of https://mbasic.facebook.com

Obviously this week was not a week to have investigators in church, because there were zero. That hurt, but we had two almost less-active members in church and that felt great. I’ve been playing the piano in church so I get to watch everyone more easily that comes in the door and its just the best feeling when they walk in, like "ok, we did something this week..." We ended up dropping a lot of investigators this week because they just aren’t progressing. We talked with one, J. who is only 18 and has two kids. She was making topogigios which are the little like slushy ice cream things in little tiny bags that are super cheap. They’re like 3 lmps and super good and super popular. So we stood there with her and talked with her about her concerns about the church, by her pila as she was stirring the mix and filling the little bags I would hand to her. Most of the time people don’t let us serve them but you just have to start in on the work or they’ll never let you, so I just started handing her the little bags and I tried to use the example of her kids whining to her. She was having to tell her daughter that she couldn’t come outside because she kept stubbing her toe or something so I was like "just like you’re trying to protect your daughter, Heavenly Father is trying to protect you and guide you, so we've been sent here to share this with you". Lately we've needed to emphasize to the people that if what we were sharing with them wasn’t true, we along with thousands of young missionaries, wouldn’t have left their lives, their families, their friends, their jobs, their studies, to preach it. You would think that would hit them pretty hard and I think it does for some, but for others, it takes a little bit more.

Sunday was rough as usual. Sundays are just really hard, normally people aren’t home, they’re all visiting family or they just don’t come to church...I was really frustrated in the afternoon/noche cuz no one was home, those that were home were just depressing me because they weren’t progressing or showing interest, and multiple times we had people say "no me gusta su iglesia" when they had only gone one time but hadn’t ever prayed or really done their "homework" as we say. Our numbers for the week were already horrible for lots of different reasons and we were just suffering. Not to mention I had to tell a past investigator that they were pregnant after her friend, a less-active we try to visit asked me what the word meant when she had written it on a piece of newspaper in English...Then we had to deal with the fact that a member that had recently gone through the temple, left her family and her husband left too! They just abandoned their kids. Their kids are pure angels, they are real blessings and I think the parents just don’t see it. The parents are always fighting and we think the mom has been texting another man. She has a previous marriage and they don’t come to church very consistently. Not to mention she feeds us twice a week so there goes lunch...but honestly we were so scared for her and her family because we were calling her and she said she would meet us but then she never came and they don’t know where she is or her husband. There are just so many unnecessary problems that happen. If we would all just keep the commandments and say our prayers I think life would be a little bit calmer here in Santa Rita.

But that night we were trying to walk in the really muddy streets and we just straight up didn’t know where to go or what to do. We were walking and walking and I’ve gotten to the point where I'm getting tired of hearing my own footsteps so it's been pretty obvious the reasons that I’ve been asked to train, I need the animo (excitement) of a new missionary. But we walked past a bunch of guys and they started saying junk and I just got so frustrated. And the worst part is, is that the best thing to do is to just keep walking and not say anything and not respond to their attempts at English or their rude comments. I just felt so tired of it all and I started to feel that lump in my throat when you want to do nothing but cry and I just looked up and said "I don't know why we need to have these things happen to us..." You get told all your life that you’re a daughter of God, that you have a great worth and then you have these animals say things and its almost impossible to pass someone without them making a comment. But then I'm reminded of the Elder Holland video of the atonement and missionary work and once again, I m reminded of the Savior and how he had to deal with so much more...but sometimes its still hard. After that happened I was like "ok, but where’s the miracle" because whenever I have a really really bad day, there is always a miracle...so there we were covered in mud on the corner of a dirt and rock covered road under the light of a cheap street lamp and I just asked my comp "What do you want to do?" and she told me "To be honest I'm desanimada...(discouraged)." and I almost couldn’t respond I was so sad. We tried to visit another less active who told us he would come to church the next week and I couldn’t even look at him, I was so tired of being lied to. It’s the worst feeling in the world, to feel like you might be wasting your time. But I know that’s not true in any way when we're serving the Lord. Even if we're just wearing our name tag, we're representing Jesus Christ.

But we decided we would go early to our dinner appointment and we were received so well by the little old lady that feeds us Sunday nights and it really did feel like coming home. They had BYU TV on and a choir was signing before the CES broadcast, she had dinner ready, and part of the family was all huddled around one of her daughters who had just gotten a sewing machine sent to her from a sibling in the states. It was like a 16 year old with a brand new car :) It was really sweet to see how excited they all were. #thesimplethingsinlife After we ate we watched the CES broadcast. Those are so necessary, just to hear the words of an apostle and know that everything they’re saying is 100% true especially after hearing so much garbage and apostasy. It's such a blessing. We felt better after that and we were able to send our data in and remember again that even when we have horrible weeks, the Lord is still watching out for us.

I don’t want you guys to think that my life is horrible as a missionary, on the flip side it's actually really great. We seriously have a lot of challenges everyday but I tell you all what really goes on. I loved doing visits with my recent convert. I loved getting out of Santa Rita for a day for our pday. I'm starting to get used to my companion. And there are too many times in the week to count, that I'm laughing so hard it hurts. The mission is hard but it's so worth it and it's still the best decision I’ve ever made in my life :) The Lord loves us and wants the best for us. We just have to show Him that we love Him and humble ourselves and push ourselves to do that much more and he's waiting to bless us :) Have a great week :) And happy early Mother's Day :)

Love,
Hermana Despain