Conference and Goat??!

4-4-16

THIS WEEK WAS CRAZY.  Let me tell ya...Sister Anderson and I did work this week. It was nuts.  We were finding like crazy! I am having a super hard time remembering what happened this week so I will just share some of the highlights!

GENERAL CONFERENCE. So wonderful!!! Such an amazing opportunity to listen and get spiritually fed.  I felt a sense of renewal and gratitude for the chance I have to be here serving as one of the Lord's missionaries.  We watched it at the church building here with some recent converts and investigators! Including ***! Seriously love her.  We are preparing for her baptism this Saturday!! We are SO EXCITED and she is even more excited too.  We had a lesson explaining the concept "Follow the Prophet" and daily prayer and scripture study.  She told us that before she watched conference that she had been watching some talks from last October's session!  She also bore her fervent testimony that she truly notices a difference when she doesn't read the scriptures. The spirit was so strong She is so ready for this!!!! I AM SO EXCITED FOR HER.

Thursday night was INSANE.  We had Zone training all day which was awesome and then we had a dinner appointment with the Capps family.  They are a hilarious family that LOVES the missionaries.  They have 8 kids, 3 are adopted and they are all homeschooled! They live out in the middle of no where and have 15 acres of land.  They breed pigs and have a pig named Boston who is 800 lbs.  800 POUNDS. He is a BIGGGGG pig. Holy pig.  They also have a million chickens and ducks and dogs and cats. You name it, they have it.  We were outside playing with all the animals when Sister Capps phone went off with Tornado alerts.  We looked over and there was a tornado heading our way so we all took a picture. It was really windy and then suddenly the wind stopped and it got dead cold. So we all freaked out and ran inside into their crawl space underneath their house for 2 hours till it calmed down!! IT WAS INSANE.  And an adventure haha  It got really bad in other parts of Alabama.  We were told we couldn't leave the Capps house until it calmed down.  Eventually it wasn't bad so President Hanks told us we could go back to our apartments, it wasn't until 11:00pm that we got to go back.  But all is well here!

Friday was the Sisters Conference for all the sister missionaries in the mission.  They have this once a year, President Hanks and Sister Hanks do a training along with some of the senior missionaries. It was so fun! The Spirit was so strong.  Most of the trainings were on Angels, mortal and immortal and how we are all angels sent here for certain people.  I loved it!  I especially loved that I got to see some of my favorite people ever!!  Sister West, Castagno, Hubbard, Johnson, Acosta, and many more!! Sister West goes home at the end of this transfer so this is the last time I will see her.  It was the roughest goodbye ever!!  We both cried.  I will miss that girl like crazy. I love the fact that we make amazing friends on the mission and connect in such a deep way.  You truly grow so close with people and it just breaks  your heart to see them go back to the real world.  

Saturday evening we got a call from the Hunters (the crazy squirrel family) saying that they had extra food from dinner that we should come and eat.  So we did!  Turns out earlier that day they killed their goat (they have 8) and cooked it!!!!!!  So theres another one to add to the list,  GOAT.  It was really really chewy and kinda gross but He seasoned it with chili which was delishhh!!! hahaha I like squirrel better.  (Their youngest daughter keeps trying to say my name and instead of saying Bister Boleen she called me Mister Leen the whole night, baby steps haha)

One of the things that really touched me from the Sisters Conference was a poem that President Hanks shared on our attitude and how it makes a world of difference. ( which it TOTALLY DOES)

Worst Day Ever? 

Today was the absolute worst day ever
And don't try to convince me that
There's something good in every day
Because, when you take a closer look,
This world is a pretty evil place.
Even if
Some goodness does shine through once in a while
Satisfaction and happiness don't last.
And it's not true that
It's all in the mind and heart
Because
True happiness can be attained
Only if one's surroundings are good
It's not true that good exists
I'm sure you can agree that
The reality
Creates
My attitude
It's all beyond my control
And you'll never in a million years hear me say
Today was a very good day

(Now read it from the bottom to the top) 

See how different the poem is now after reading it from the bottom up?  I have seen this concept time and time and time again on my mission.  Attitude is everything!  

I loved how General Conference tied perfectly in some of the trainings from our mission meetings.  One of my favorite parts about Conference was Jeffery R. Hollands talk at the very end.  How we need to keep going, keep loving God, and that we truly can improve ourselves! It’s all about our attitude and  our direction!  I know that we have a heavenly Father that loves us. We are His children and he wants us to be happy.  He loves us so much he gave this gospel to help us maneuver our way through life.  It is our job as participants to share this message with others!!!!!! 

I love muh life, I love learning, I love GC, and I love being a missionary.  

Sorry this email is a bunch of random thoughts!  Have a great week I love yall!!!!

So much southern love for all of yall

Con mucho amor, xoxoxo

Mister leen