{2016}

Happy New Years! I hope you all made some good New Years resolutions!
Mine is to make the next year of my mission better than the first! So
for those of you who freaked out last week because there was no weekly
email... Don't worry, I'm fine. You can stop crying now hahaha. But
the real excuse for not emailing last week is because.... Well I can't
really think of one. It was just a pretty busy day and a lazy day too.
Playing sports and going shopping always seems to outweigh emailing
haha but I'll get better at it.
So anyways, these last few weeks have been great. I can't complain at
all! Christmas was great getting able to have the whole day off and
getting to skype home and talk to my family. Everyone is getting so
much older (Especially pops and my dad) hopefully their golf score
doesn't go up too much like their age hahaha. Serving in Utah
definitely has it's perks around Christmas time. The members out here
are so generous. We had our groceries paid for 3 times in the month of
December. And I can't even count the times we got our meals paid for
at restaurants which is good and bad because since we got paid for, it
just gave us more money to go out and eat fast food and junk food
Hahaha. We also put another lady on date for re-activation this last
week that we have been teaching for months and she is doing great now.
I admire her so much. She's come from such a tough situation and a
tough life that she had no control over and yet she still comes back
to church with the faith and hope that it will help her out in her
life and she is starting to see the blessings of the gospel and she
even has a calling now and she loves it! She's an example to me in so
many ways. When life gets tough, always turn to our savior, Jesus
Christ and he will get you through it. I have a huge testimony of it.
As most of you know, I really struggled at the beginning of my mission
with a certain companion and just feeling inadequate to be a
missionary and that is the hardest I've ever prayed in my whole life
and that is when I truly gained a testimony of the saviors power and
great love for each of us. So if any of you are having similar
struggles with feeling inadequate or depressed or frustrated with
anything, my challenge for you going into this new year is to turn to
Christ and just lay it all out there and tell him everything; good or
bad. And I can promise as a representative of him, you will feel the
difference in your life. You will feel the fruits of the spirit
(Galatians 5:22-23). The atoning sacrifice of Christ not only covers
our sins if we repent but he also suffered for all of our infirmities
and struggles we go through. He went through it all so that he could
know what we go through in this life so that he could help us out.
You're never alone. If you're feeling like nobody knows what you're
going through, he does. I promise. Tell him all about it. Talk to him
like he's your best friend. The gospel is true ladies and gents. I
love it. I love being out here. Love you guys. (: