Family!! :)

I hope you all had a wonderful week this week! :) This week was awesome and exciting here in the good old land of Florida. There has been some crazy storms lately which means it is officially summer! Yay!! This transfer we got a new sister in the house so I am officially the oldest. It’s weird, but I love all the girls so much. Our house is the best! So much fun.

This week we went to eat with Brother White and his family. Best bbq chicken ever! And guess what? He said the prayer for the food and he said that was the first prayer he said in years. His wife was very impressed. We know that she will join the church because of his example. It was a fun time. We love their family so much.

Last p-day we went to Sister Boga’s house and hung out with her and had lunch. She is another awesome less active. I don’t know if i told you about her but she is amazing! We love her so much. She is really into gardening and she has this huge garden, so every time we come over she teaches us lot about planting. When we were talking with her she asked us what the biggest challenge is as a missionary and we said reaching our goals and getting good numbers, because of how much pressure there is in the mission. She said something awesome that really helped us. She said that numbers don’t matter. She said it’s better to baptize 2 good strong people and have them be in the church forever then baptize 30 people and have them all fall away. She said if we baptize 2 solid people, those two solid people will effect generations and by them millions of people can be baptized.  She compared it to a plant. When you are planting a potted plant into the ground you can see it has a bunch of small roots but they soon quickly either die or fall off. It is the couple strong roots that stay and give life to the plant. She said don’t worry about numbers worry about baptizing solid people so the church can have those strong roots. It was awesome. Sister Boga is the best and has such a strong testimony of the church. She is just stubborn, but we know she will become active again.

So we dropped Mike and Emma but we have Lynn who is amazing! I think I told you about her last week. We got to teach her for the first time and we taught her the restoration. It was super powerful and she understood it great. She just had a couple a questions about the priesthood and other rumors about us but all those were easily answered and fixed. She told us that last Sunday they woke up late to go to their church and it was 45 min away so she told her son that they needed to find another church that is closer. So they knelt in prayer and asked Heavenly Father to guide them to a church and they ended up at ours. So cool right! She was definitely meant to be there! She has been reading the Book of Mormon and has been praying for an answer if the church is true as well if Joseph Smith was a prophet. She says she hasn’t received an answer yet but that it feels good. We are excited to continue to help her progress! :) She is so willing to learn.

I have some other sad but good news. Sister Calvo has finished her mission:( but the good news is she lives here in Florida! I don’t know if i ever told you guys the story but Sister Calvo lived in Spain and about a year before she got her mission call her mom moved here to Florida. So when Sister Calvo got her call to Florida she was surprised. What is super cool is her ward is the Spanish ward in the building I go to!! This is why I was supposed to stay! hahah What was a huge blessing it was last Wednesday. We were at the church to pick up dinner the young women made for us (super awesome by the way) and in walks in Sister Calvo and her family which is like my Spanish family. She was there to be released from her mission. It was like a big family reunion!! They all said they missed me. I gave Sister Calvo a huge hug and she asked me if I wanted to stay for her releasing and I was like yes! So she went in to have her interview with the Stake President and then we all got together. She gave her last testimony as being a missionary which was sad and then they asked her to remover her tag and that’s what got me. It was probably the saddest thing to see. I don’t know how to explain it but seeing her remove her tag was super hard. The rest of the night I was holding on to mine. I didn’t want to take it off. It made me realize how fast time goes and how I don’t want my mission to end at all. I know I will always be a missionary but still... it makes me sick to think about. So now Sister Calvo comes out with us to teach and knock doors. Which is weird but so much fun! She is for sure still a missionary!! I get to see her at church:)

This family in our ward, the Riggin’s, are from Seattle and are amazing. A young couple in their late 20s with two awesome kids! We go over to their house every Sunday. Brother Riggin’s is a golfer and him and his family are going to Seattle for the US Open so they will be in Lynnwood for a week with family and they said they want to come visit you guys. They said they can take stuff home for me or pick stuff up from you guys and they want to take pictures. That will be the week of June 13th. I am super excited for you all to meet them!

This week I was reading in Ether and I was reading how the Jaredites were in the barges and how they had to go through fierce winds and crazy stuff but they were still being pushed towards the Promised Land. I never thought much about this scripture but as I read it this time it made me think about how this is like how our trials are. They can be crazy and toss us to and fro but we are still being pushed towards the Promised Land. It made me think of as well this story about this family who went rafting and when they went through the rapids it was super scary and they fought to stay on the raft. But after the trip the dad said that even though at the time going through the rapids was super scary it was the best part. When we are going through trials they may seem hard to bare but in the end as we look back we will find that it was during those times that we grew the most and were able to come closer to our Father in Heaven. :)

A quote that I heard was "If you were the only Book of Mormon people would read what would they read" something to think about :)

I almost forgot about Skyping! I will be Skyping around 7pm or so my time so for you guys it will be 4. Does that work? I will call you guys before I get on to warn you:)) I can’t wait to see all your faces!! Super excited that Lauryn will be there!

Ii love you all sooo much!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) Have an awesome week!