Happy Easter! Happy Hump Day!

Happy Easter!

Hump Duhay! Happy Halfway!

Leonor's birthday

Oh man this week has been crazy, it has gone by really fast but its been long at the same time. I dont know if thats possible or if that makes sense, but thats what happened. There have been so many things that have happened. I want to talk about people first. On Tuesdays we do service with a Lutheran church and help them run a food and clothing shelf. We met a lady there this week that has had 12 surgeries in the last 5 years and has another scheduled for next month. Shes in a program for homeless people and has a live-in PCA. She was having a hard time all around, and we offered to say a prayer with her. She cried through the whole thing and was really grateful for our help. She is scared in pain all the time. We talked to her about how God is mindful of her and always gives us the experiences we need to grow the most. It was nice to feel like we helped her and made a difference. She wants us to come and see her in the hospital, so we'll see how that goes/if that goes. 

We had dinner with a member this week at Panda Express and she was telling us more about her life story. She said it herself, her life would make the perfect telenovela. She has been married 4 times, a couple of times to abusive spouses, and her parents are crazy and have kidnapped her son before, like crazy things. The more and more I talk to people the more I realize just how good I have it. It's something I knew before, but it becomes more and more apparent that my life is perfect. She would never describe her experiences as bad necessarily, she always says that if it's what she had to go through to be where shes at today, then so be it. It's all a part of her. If anyone figures out why life has to be so hard for some people, let me know. God works in mysterious ways. 

That same night we met with Leo, one of our recent converts, and he has had a problem with wanting to receive the priesthood, so we had a pretty intense lesson with him about the priesthood. at one point, he said "my heart feels weird." we were like...uhhh ok, what do you mean? Like it's beating really hard? and he said "no, it's really calm but like full of adrenaline." It didn't really make sense, but it was obvious that he was feeling the spirit and it was a cool experience to see him recognize that he was feeling something. 

Another thing that happened this week was that I screwed up and Heavenly Father bailed me out. It's not the first time that has happened. We were at the Cupkies house and I chose not to leave when we should have so we would have been really late to an appointment with one of our investigators, and on our way I realized, wow I really could have screwed this up. I prayed please don't let my stupid decision mess it up with this investigator, and it turns out her daughter was sick so she couldn't meet with us anyway. Its not the first time that I've prayed that same thing, and both times, we've been bailed out. I am grateful that Heavenly Father let's us work with Him to preach the gospel, because there are so many people that would be so much more qualified, but he gives us, the 18 and 20 yr olds of the world, the privilege of doing it. Thankfully he doesn't let us mess it up too bad. 

Wednesday, we had new missionary training in Bloomington. It was fun seeing Hna Warmbier and Hna Bryson who is Hna H's comp from the MTC. WE got to hang out and learn stuff haha plus the ladies from the Twin Cities Spanish ward fed us lunch, and it was so fun to see all my friends! While we were in our meetings, it started to snow and basically snowed all night. President was hesitant to let us drive home in the snow, but said ok fine but be suuuppper careful. It took us almost 2 hours to get from Bloomington to Lakeville which is usually only a 15 minute drive. At one point there was a minivan stuck in the middle of the road on a hill, so we had to stop for them, someone had to back them into the middle of the intersection, they were stuck, we were now stuck, because we're still on an incline. A snow plow drove by and a huge line of cars followed them. Finally I was able to back into where they had plowed, and we still barely made it up the hill. Then, when we got home, we couldn't get into the garage because the driveway is too steep and slippery with the snow. So we shoveled for a half hour before we could get in. It was a crazy day haha, but fun. Quite the adventure. 

Thursday we had interviews with President Forbes. Originally we were told to be at the church by 1pm, but at 9 ish we got a text that said that there was a miscommunication and President was already at the church. So we booked it to the church and were the first ones there for the first half hour. Apparently it caught everyone by surprise. We were there until 3 ish. Good thing we started early. So that was a weird day too. Friday and Saturday were really busy because we didn't a lot of work Wednesday and Thursday with all the meetings. 

Another crazy thing that happened is one of the Elders in our district was emergency transferred because someone else in the mission went home early. That was unexpected too. And now the Elder left here is in a trio with the zone leaders and they are covering two areas. 

Saturday we had the general womens session of conference, and that was really good. We had a ton of people member and investigators who said they were planning on going, but we had 1 member show up. SO that was sad, but the messages were still really good. I loved the focus on service. 

Easter was different than I'm used to as well. First of all, our ward switched our fast Sunday to this Sunday, so we had Fast Sunday on Easter. Second we had a dinner with the branch after church so we had tamales for Easter dinner. Sounds about right for a Spanish missionary:) It was also Leonors birthday, she turned 85. Overall I really enjoyed/enjoy this Easter season. It's really nice to be able to really focus on the Savior. All the Hispanics ever ask why Americans celebrate Easter with bunnies and eggs. And we say. Beats us, want to hear what its really about? It has been a nice focus. 

It's been a pretty crazy week. Today was an errand running Pday, we shopped, printed pictures, went to the post office, and got our hairs cut. No rest for the weary. I am really glad y'all got out to see Ryan. YAY RYAN for winning. Thats so exciting! I miss St George and hanging with the fam. I love the pictures. Everyone is getting so old. Ryan's hair makes me laugh aahaha!

Thanks so much for the Easter basket, it made my entire week, I loved it. Also the hump day shirt made me smile:) Happy nine months, I hope it's gone as fast for you as it has for me!

I love you! 

Emily