not Monday. But first I must warn you that I'm running on about 4
hours of sleep. Which was slept on the floor. Fun stuff! But totally
worth it. Because.....
WE WENT TO THE TEMPLE!!!!!!! Holy cow, I will never ever ever ever ever go 15 months without going to the temple again. Seriously, it was basically a dream (mostly because we had to leave at 3 am to get there on time, and we spent the night at the English sisters' apartment, so I was exhausted). But it was incredible. The new movie is so great! We went to the Orlando temple, so beautiful! I seriously just wanted to sit in the celestial room all day. It was perfect, so good! Everyone needs to get there! I have a better grasp on the importance of pointing people, investigators, new members, inactive members, toward the temple. It's where they need to be. I never even want to go a month without being in the temple, or a week! I wanna go back right now! But there's other work to be done. The workers were so sweet. The man that said the prayer started getting choked up, and it was because the next thing he prayed for was the missionaries. After, the temple president took us into a room to visit personally with us. So great!
Anyway, were only allowed to go to the temple on a p-day, so they changed our p-day to today and we worked yesterday. There were 6 elders and 4 sisters, and President and Sister Healey from the mission
presidency.
This week we set a date with Carmen Uvalle! She wants to wait for February to get baptized on her moms birthday, which is kinda far away. We were thinking for more like the end of the year. But actually, it'll be easier for me to come back in February than the week after I get home.
Vicky is doing awesome! She finally got to church! We went over the law of chastity yesterday. She was concerned about having to get rid of the feelings she has toward women. We just explained that she's not
to act on them, and focus on what God's plan is for her. She liked that and is totally on board. She's having struggles with coffee, but that should be petty easy to nip in the bud. Emily Silva had to be dropped :( Her mom doesn't want her learning anymore. So that breaks my heart! But she'll get baptized eventually. For sure :)
Elmer Gomez is anew one, and he came to church! Alberto picked him up :) He just want to learn everything! And know the truth for real. Shaynna Shoemaker is an old one we picked back up. She's English, and totally amazing! I just love her so much! But, she had family come into town for the weekend, and didn't make it to church :/ So she'll have to wait to get baptized until I leave. Which is fine! I think the weirdest thing for me right now is realizing that all these people will be progressing and getting baptized after I'm gone. Yuck, that so weird. Anyway, we saw Shaynna yesterday as well and the first thing she told us is that she knows it seems weird and that she's not really into it because she hasn't really kept commitments yet, but she's totally into it! She promised us :)
We went on exchanges with the mission STLs, we just stayed together and they taught us how to plan better. That was fun! And then we went on exchanges with the other Spanish sisters in the zone. That was my first one as an STL, it was cool! I went out of the area, so I wasn't really guiding the exchange, but I was able to ask the right questions and know to help the hermana. We actually found out they both got pulled out of the zone. So we're back to 1 set of hermanas (us) and 1 set of English. Fun! I'm really grateful to have had this chance to
serve as an STL. I've definitely understood better how leaders are the servants more that the people they lead. That might make more sense in my head than it does typed out... Anyway! Here's my three things I'm grateful for this year!
1- the country we live in. It's not perfect, but from hearing stories from the people we teach, we're doing a lot better than other places.
2- I'm so grateful for all the people I've met on the mission. Before I left, Pres. Bischoff promised me I'd meet people I knew before this life. I know that was a true promise.
3- I am so grateful for the restored gospel, most specifically for the temples and for all the blessings that come with it. I know that is Gods house. I will do whatever I must to always be worthy to enter there.
I love you all so much! I'll see you soon :)
Love, Hermana Despain
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| A bit of a tropical storm came in while we were in the temple. So we didn't get to get typical temple pictures. But these are pretty cute! |
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| There were raccoons at the church last night! |
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| We went to a baptism and they had the coolest cake! It tasted pretty amazing too! |
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| Has gas been going down all over the country? It's dropped at least 50 cents around here. |
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