November 18, 2013 Well first of all, Im not mad that you didnt write last week. I would be lying if I said I wasnt sad, but Stuart and Lindy write every week as well so I still had emails. And truns out we needed the time to clean the apt and such, we ran out of time to do everything we need to on Pdays. but Im glad I got one this week :) So much to respond to. I think it would be fine for you to send it to the Relitz, she loves us! She is a hoot! Funniest lady ever! She said she wanted to send a letter to you, I dont know if she did or not, I know she has been really busy lately. But she is awesome! She and Bro Relitz drove us to the adult session of Stake Conference and fed us on the way home and all that jazz. Shes really awesome, so go ahead and send it there. Ill tell her what it is and that she wont get a bunch of packages so itll be fine! Im glad that you guys are all able to talk a lot. I did send Garret an email a few weeks ago and Ive heard from him twice already! I know he has a ton of stuff that he has to do so I dont expect an email every week. The first one was pretty long actually, and definitely made me cry. In the middle of the public library... not a big deal. One thing that my mission has made me is a cry baby. Its pathetic! But sister Carrigan says I have a pretty cry face so I guess its okay... Brittany got married! I had no idea! Congrats! Thats exciting :) Hope everything works out with everyone. That would bring a lot of mixed emotions for a lot of people. But Im glad that she has been able to find someone to enjoy life with and for the happiness thats able to bring to her and Dylan. I got some letters from Jocee and Laurissa (who told me that she also goes by Larry) and Bethany so that was fun! Im sending them a letter today, but Im not sure if the address is 100% right... Michaels hand writting is hard to read... so if they dont get it in the next while Ill have to get the right address for them. It was either #66 or #00 and I couldnt quite tell.. Im sending it to #66 so hopefully thats right! You might want to ask them though if they got it... Im glad that Tiff is doing good, uncomfortable but healthy! I will keep her in my prayers. And Congrats to Tammi! How exciting! I am sooo happy for her and for her girls! Im glad they found each other again :) And Junior sounds awesome! But why on earth was it at 6:30 in the morning?! Thats odd... And I will keep the Texas cousins in my prayers :( How is rufus doing? Hopefully he is doing well! And how is Grandpa? I havent heard anything about him lately... The advent calender thing sounds great! It will be fun to try and guess and open them every day :) And you are way on top of things this year! Good job mom! Thats quite impressive! Better than I ever have been... and I cant help you out with Garret, hes always hard to buy for because he is very particular about his tastes etc. But Im sure he will be fine with what you plan on sending him! And Im glad that Janelle was able to hold out and get him with the muffins! haha. Good girl J! How was her visit? Another ball right? Hope they had a good time. Did they get any pictures this time? You can email me pictures :) Glad you like the carinessa! I love them. The cotton still keeps me way warmer! Ill be sweating the days I wear them, but they will be good for winter! Stuart and Lindy are coming already? Man. Thanksgiving is coming up so fast! Time is just flying by! Which is good, and bad... But anyhow. We have already one thanksgiving dinner set up, we are going to try and get to as many dinners as we can, the ward is trying to get the less actives into actives homes for thanksgiving dinner, so if we can get to lots of dinners, first of all we will be happily fed missionaries :) and we will get to spend time with lots of our members and less actives which is good! This week we went to go contact a 'do not contact' because a member called her and asked if we could come over and she said yes she loves missionaries! So we were able to get in and meet her. And they fed us dinner (which was a blessing that night, we were definitely hungry then! ) and she invited us to thanksgiving dinner or to come for pie, and we have been told that her pie is divine! So we are planning on ending our night there :) I am excited! We have also been invited by another member, now we just need to figure out times and see who else we can visit with! Man Kjiera is still in AZ! I thought she was gone! How grateful I am that I am not a visa waiter.. which we are now calling Visa blessings in our mission. And things have changed for them. Originally they were doomed to be the junior companion the whole time they were state side, they were not allowed to hold any leadership callings but that changed. Which is a big blessing! Because they are literally waiting every day to find out if they are staying or leaving within 24 hours. And members ask constantly why they are still here, which makes it harder for them! But now they are allowed to train, and be leaders and really feel like they are giving more. Which is huge! Because we have some amazing visa blessings here who will help teach and really be a great benefit to the mission while they are here. I am not jealous of them though, just waiting to know whether or not they will stay or leave. A very hard transitory place to be :( She will be in my prayers too! And you guys got to see that Sister Lauer and I saw each other at stake conference! I felt bad because we literally only saw each other long enough to take that picture and then it was starting and we didnt find each other after the session. But it was good to see her! she snuck up behind me and said 'how are you doing sister wilson' it was great to see her again! Wish I had gotten to see the kids or talk to her more! But who knows, maybe I will go to Pottsville and get to see them all again! And meet the new little ones as well :) Well this week. what a blur. I feel like I was just here email you! We got to go on exchanges with the sister training leaders. Which is a new thing after the age change. They are like a Zone Leader.. except really different actually. They are the leaders over just the sisters in multiple zones. There are 8 sister trainers in the mission, so 4 companionships now. They split the mission into quarters and they each are leaders over one quarter of the mission. They go on exchanges with each companionship they are over every transfer. They are there to help council, (since elders and sisters dont council each other) and they are another go to between us and president if we need it. They attend Mission Leadership Council and help to train the sisters. They hold sister accountability during each exchange, which is a list of questions about obedience, stress, your family, your mental health etc. to make sure we are doing our best and to make sure that we are receiving any help we need. They are pretty helpful actually, and I was sad because when we first got here I had the same sister traininers that I had in Montrose, but they got switched and I was kinda worried about what kind of leaders they would be. Turns out they are awesome! Sister Earl is one of the most kind and sincere people I have ever met! She taught me about really focusing on strengths of me and my companion, which is helpful. Also sister Meeks is one of the funnies sisters ever! She was a hoot and a half and I only spent lunch with her so we could all do accountability together. Hopefully I get to work with her a little bit more. But next transfer is her last one, so we shall see. We had dinner at the Tatlows this week. They are hilarious! In the middle of dinner sister Tatlow said: You know, I dont think Im going to make it to the Celestial kingdom, but as long as I get to be an angel in one of my kids worlds, like I want to be the Angel of Death in ______ world! I just busted up laughing! It was soooo funny! Shes a hoot. I love it! They are having us over the day before Thanksgiving and that is when they have Thanksgiving in their family (husband works away most of the week) so we get another Thanksgiving dinner! Yahoo! Also we saw Cindy last night :) Oh how I love Cindy! She is awesome! We talked about the plan of Salvation last night, and we talked about what she had been feeling all week and how things were going. She told us that she got her answer while she was ironing this week. She said there was a very sassy voice that told her ' what are you waiting for? You know this already. Just do it!' and it surprised her because of how sassy it was. She talked with Gentry who told her yup, somtimes its sassy, and yup sometimes thats weird! But it was so good! We tried to set a baptismal date with her, and she was very hesitant. Turns out that her son is in the Navy and she wants to be able to talk to him before she gets baptized and she wants Gentry to talk to her son before they get married. I told her I get that, what ever poor soul I marry is going to have to talk to two brothers instead of one dad, poor guy... but secretly thats really funny to me :) Anyways, so we ended up setting her Baptismal date for January 5th, which gives them enough time to talk to her son and figure out what exactly they want to do. So we walked out of there on cloud 9! Just so excited for her! Cindy is awesome! We only got to Earth life in the plan of salvation, and we were there longer than we should have been... but we only got part way because its such a good conversation! She has awesome questions and we are able to really discuss and help her learn, and if she isnt quite sure she says 'Ill have to think about that' and then she does for the next week! I love her. As we were leaving, she said I love it when you girls come over, because I feel like Ive known you for longer than only a few weeks. And Gentry, and I both said to her its probably because we have! Im sure that the four of us had a conversation in the pre-earth life about coming down and finding each other here. How grateful I am that we have found each other! I cant wait to get to the other side and have a prefect memory of everything, earth life and before and to know that we were friends and we were able to find each other. Man! This gospel is SO cool! I just love it! We also unexpectedly have a really busy week ahead of us, which is awesome! I am so excited for everything that is happening now. We had a few referrals that we have been trying to contact and we were able to call this week and set it up. Turns out that Shannon is a college student and she invited us over for lunch and said that they were all excited to learn about our religion. So we have an appointment with an unknown number of people to teach about the gospel, and they are going to feed us. How cool is that? I love food. And you know what missionaries miss eating? Breakfast foods. Do breakfast for dinner! Waffles and bacon and eggs! Because lets be honest, I dont cook breakfast... and a sister had us over for breakfast before Stake conference on sunday and we had waffles and it was delicious! Also we miss fruit! Because no one serves fruit with dinner, and its expensive. So serve fruit to your missionaries! At least your sisters, you elders may not even care. But I miss fruit. And Mexican food and Chinese food! Mexican is good, and there is not a whole lot of good mexican food out here... but Sister Ortega is a good cook and she is feeding us more spanish food so its okay! I love it :) Hum, I cant think of anything else! Mostly I just love you guys a whole lot! Miss you tons! I think of you often and you are in my nightly prayers. Thank you for your love and your support, how grateful I am for that! So keep doing what your doing, your awesome! Love you buckets! Sister Kindra Wilson

November 11, 2013 Yeah so today is Veterans day, which means that number one our libraries should be closed, but arent, and that we shouldnt have Pday today, but we do :) So heres my email! This week was BIRTHDAY WEEK :) And we all know how much I LOVE birthday week :) Its one of my favoritest weeks of the year. I got to finish opening all my presents, thank you for all of the cardigans! I love them! The black one is my favorite, it fits really well and its very warm :) And the mustardy one matches that scarf very well paired with my grey leopard print pencil skirt (my favorite one I inherited from my trainer) this might be my new favorite outfit, so thank you mommy! You did very well! We had a nice Pday last week, more relaxed and more time once we figured out the washer deal and the fact that we arent driving to the church any more. We went and got soup for lunch, because its turned into soup and salad weather, which I like. No snow yet which is preferable! Its definitely getting colder though, which is not very nice. Also the colors came out this week! Ill try and remember to send some pictures, Stuart asked me to take tons of pictures to share, and I think this week was our window. Its getting windier and stormier every day, so the leaves are falling pretty quickly now. And its ridiculous the amount of leaves everywhere! They dont bother to rake the leaves because its pretty pointless. They have leave sucker machines that come along (kinda like the street cleaners do, but they have this huge vacuum hose that one guy has to direct) and they go along the curbs downtown and in some of the suburbs to suck up the leaves. And so people will dump all the leaves in their yard along the curb to be sucked up. So we have piles of leaves like Idaho has piles of snow in the winter. Its kinda cool. I like to jump in them and kick them and all of that. AND there is this great pile in the church yard of leaves that I have wanted to jump in for several weeks now. But seeing as how I am a missionary and have a name tag and all that jazz I thought it would be better if I did not. So I havent, but Ive still wanted to! And I thought to myself, if I could get a kid to play with me I would do it, because children play in leaves all the time and that's acceptable! So after Ashley's Baptism as we were walking out her daughter Kylie ran over and jumped in the leaves.... so I did too! It was great fun, I love little kids! And oh my goodness! We have met the most stubborn little girl of my life! Maybe I am just noticing now more, because I'm sure Ive met others, but her name is Brinlee, which I think is cute, and she was having a fit in church because she wanted to run up and be with daddy, well she couldnt because daddy was up at the front and was going to be the one to confirm Ashley and member and bless her with the gift of the Holy Ghost. So she was screaming and her mom took her out, but she tried to sneak back in. So I looked over at her and got her to come and stand by me. I scooped her up, set her on the bench next to me and then wrapped my arms around her so she couldnt run in the middle of the prayer. She sat just fine, but after when I asked her if she would be good for mommy, she looked up at me and shook her head and said uhh uuhhh (no)! And she has done several things like that, you know the nice kicking her sister because she wants the book etc.We teach Ashley in their home and so we get to interact with them a lot. But she is the cutest little girl! We had a lesson with the Ortegas this week. We meet with them every monday and have Family Home Evening with them. We have started reading the Book of Mormon with them and we have been trying to get them to church since we got here. Its hard because the dad isnt a member so he doesnt really want to come, and he was on a football team that always played on sunday mornings, but they won the championship last week so that should be done! They were at sacrament meeting this week and then there was a missionary farewell yesterday night which they came to. And there were a lot of miracles at that farewell! But with the Ortegas, they have a daughter who is in Young Womens who we have been trying to get to come and has needed some fellowship. Well at the open house she walked with the YW president and some of the young women and she agreed to attend early morning seminary this morning! YAHOO! I was just walking on clouds all night after I heard that. Because guess what? Its working! We are able to be in the Ortegas home and help them learn about the gospel. Sister Ortega is now teaching her children more and catching the fire. She told us that she read the assigned reading from the Book of Mormon with her family, but then she kept going because she wanted to know what happened! The dad is there when we are teaching now, he is interacting with us more and he is reading the Book of Mormon with his family. Their daughter is going to Seminary! Which means she will hopefully make better friends in YW and want to stay on Sundays, and maybe want to come to mutual. Which means then her and her two younger sisters who are activity day aged, would get to their activities! Its been a long haul, and we are just starting to see the changes in their family, mostly because they are seeing it and telling us! Its great :) Man. This is the Lords work, and it changes lives!!!! Day by day, with a lot of time and effort, everyone can change! We were also able to meet with our less active sister Wendy this week. she was the one that I was surprised remembered our last appointment. But she was there and she was eager to hear from us! We met more of her family, her house is still crazy, but we were able to see their hearts soften from the moment they walked in (they were very not happy to see us in their home and were not afraid to make it known) to the moment we left, where she was receptive to us. We even asked Wendy to say a closing prayer and she was clearly uncomfortable with everything that was going on, but her family stopped and said you say beautiful prayers! Just say it. And helped her want to, and she did! She said it in spanish so I have no idea what she said, but it was pretty! We then organized a ride for her to get to church this week, and she came! We found out once she got there that the Spanish elders had gone to her house as well, on saturday night! At like 8:45, clearly the last person of the night. I guess Wendy had requested a spanish book of mormon online and they went to deliver it. They had no idea she was a member! They made a comment about our new investigator coming to church and we were like Wendy? No shes a member! but she speaks spanish, so we are now trying to figure out where she needs to be. Because she clearly wants sisters. She said to us in our lesson that she felt like she knew us. she felt very comfortable with us and trusted us and confided in us some of her life situation which, is kind of a big deal and needs more attention than a lot of other issues. So we dont feel like we should just pass her off to the Spanish elders, but she understands better in spanish. So we are trying to figure out what to do for Wendy and her family. Sister Carrigan said on the way home 'sounds like its going to be a turf rumble' to see if she goes to the spanish ward or stays here. And I dont really care what ward shes in, as long as she is where she needs to be. The only issue is who is teaching her, so we are praying over that and trying to figure out what the best situation should be. Sorry, apparently I dont use paragraphs any more... oh well. We also had dinner at a members house this week (we had more than one, but I want to tell you about one) the Bittners. They are such a cute little family! Three boys, one is 12 or 13, ones 7 and one is 3 or 4. And they are cute as buttons! But Sister Bittner is the best, she is just hilarious! She is an author and she is just publishing her first book, I cant remember what it is called. But she was so excited she was telling us all about it! And its a scifi book, which I dont usually do. But she was telling us about it and it actually sounds really interesting, I want to read it when I get home. And it was cute how excited she was. Oh and when I walked in, their 7 year old loves us. He gives us monkey hugs, which entails him wrapping his arms around us and then picking up his feet and wrapping them around us as well. While we were there they said okay no more monkey hugs to the sister missionaries! Which I was grateful for. But we saw sister Bittner at the open house last night and she said she was having a rough month, because she broke the sabbath a month ago. I said you know you can repent from that! And she said, I know, but I broke the Sabbath because we went to Comicon in NY.... HAHAHA I love her! Sister Carrigan and I (and sister bittner!) all laughed and we told her how much we loved her. She awesome! Wicked creative and such a great mom. I love being around her! Well yesterday was a good sunday, funny. We had Ward Council and in ward council were a few good quotes. So Elders Quorum was talking about some of the callings they extended. One of them was a calling with Family History work... and I quote... "We call him, for lack of a better title, the 'redeeming the dead guy' " Thats literally what the Elders Quorum calls it. the 'redeeming the dead guy'. Love it. They were also talking about the Danish and some comments were made: "All you have to do is stick a potato in your mouth to sound like a Dane" "And depending on what country your in is the type of potato to use" I love our ward councils, they are quite inspiring! haha. We were also talking about a recent convert how has gone inactive that cuts hair for a living. And the young mens president said "well we can take the young men to go get hair cuts"... and the bishop responded with "can we look into the budget for that?" and then we all laughed, because he was only half serious. But man, its been a good week. And I got a birthday lunch, dinner, facebook time, and then we got to teach Cindy! Cindy, how I love my dear Cindy! We talked about the Priesthood and authority and the fact that we can trace our Authority back to Christ himself and all that that entails. It was a really good lesson filled with great questions, she knows so much more than she thinks she does! At one point she was asking about when Joseph Smith received the Priesthood and asked "Yeah Joseph Smith, and who was with him?... thats right Oliver Cowdry"... and I just started laughing! She stopped and said "What?" and then sister Carrigan and Brother LaMartin both started laughing. Her concern is that she does not know enough, because Brother LaMartin (who she is dating) is a scriptorian, much like unto my companion Sister Carrigan, he can remember where he read everything. And thats intimidating to Cindy because she is like me, and we cannot find that one scripture to save our lives (thank goodness for the search function on LDS.org!) And I just looked at her and said, "you know more than you think you know! There are members who couldnt tell you that!" And she said so many other things and asked such great questions that I was comical to think her fear is that she doesnt know enough. But I get that, I have the same concern, as I think we all do at some point. But she is so ready! She told us that she knows its true, she just hasnt gotten that spiritual confirmation that she is looking for yet. Cindy is awesome! I cannot wait for her to find that answer that she is looking for. its truly amazing to see how the Lord is preparing the people as He is hastening His work. What a great time to be a missionary! I am so glad that I am here now and I am able to get to know and love these people. I am truly a blessed daughter of God to have such experiences in my life! I wish I could thank Him fully for everything my Heavenly Father has given me. What a blessing it is to be out here serving a mission. Know that I love you all! I pray for all of our family by name every night! I pray for you constantly and hope that God strengthens you in whatever you may need at this time. I love you, and miss you dearly! Keep the faith and stay strong everyone, because believe it or not, the Gospel has been restored to the Earth once again! With all my love, Sister Kindra Wilson :) © 2013 MicrosoftTermsPrivacyDevelopersEnglish (United States)

Theses are some WILD Turkeys they drove by when Kindra was serving in tthe Montrose area...Hope they find a good hiding place for the next few weeks!!!

PS email from November 4, 2013 So in honor of my birthday being so soon, there was an announcement last week on our weekly mission wide conference calls, that to celebrate the whole mission is getting iPhones and iPads! Just kidding, its not in honor of my birthday... but we really are getting iPhones and iPads by the end of the year. Each companionships phone will be switched to an iPhone and EVERY missionary will be receiving an iPad. I know. I was also shocked! But we will be the first mission to receive them, but not the only one. I think there are 4 of us here on the east coast who will be getting such tools to help us spread the Gospel. We currently are able to have ipods and itouch's. The missionaries with the itouch ipods are able to use some apps like facebook messenger to be able to teach to people when we are not sitting in front of a computer. That will not be a function available to us on the iPads and they are asking all missionaries to send iPods home. Since we are getting iPads theres no real reason to have the itouch as well. With the iPhones we will be given the opportunity to teach people using facetime, skype, etc. And I believe (but am not 100%) that we will be able to skype home at Christmas and mothers day, but those things will be decided closer to that time. Im not sure when we will be getting these tools but we are told that everyone will have one by the end of the year and that the people in Salt Lake over the missionary department and facebook will be here in a few weeks to give training to the leaders and then to all of us on how to most effectively use these tools. On the iPads we do not have free reign over the internet. Currently on the iPods the web browsers are disabled and the games are all removed. We will have access to all the church apps. Which will be cool because we can use the study journal online, we can view the mormon.org videos, we can now use anything on LDS.org to teach, including the new Bible videos! Anything that you can use from LDS.org or Mormon.org will be available to us to use to teach. Our area books are now going to be on the iPads as well. NO MORE PAPER! Which can be good or bad... .I think that President will have access to these tools which is good because then he can see who is keeping everything up to date etc. Our weekly reports will be on the iPads, the reports that go to ward coucil and the ward mission leader will be made available to them, so they can view the reports whenever they choose. Also our planners will be on the iPads... but i have stocked up on enough planners to last the rest of my mission, because its my crutch. I like to be able to pull it out and know the schedule and talk to people on their porch and set up a time without pulling out a big ole tablet. But some people are really excited to get rid of theirs... which is weird to me. Anyways! Just thought I should drop a note to tell you all about how much the work is progressing here. Its quite amazing everything that is made available to us! And my mission is very different than what I thought it was going to be! Ill tell you that much! LOVES!

PHOTOS:

More shots of Old Town Bethlehem
Kindra is also learning just how serious parking on the East Coast really is!!! Don't mess with alternate days  parking!!!
Trees that are right outside her apartment. they have not had a very colorful Fall in Penn this year. But lots of yellow!!

PHOTOS:

Pictures from Old Town in Bethlehem, Pa.
Kindra's Bday is Wed Nov 6th. Members brought them dinner and ice cream to celebrate....they had to be in off the streets for Tick or Treating
A shot of her district in Bethlehem

November 3, 2013

THANK YOU! For the birthday card, the box of muffins and the coat and the birthday boxes :) It was a week full of goodies! And my birthday is still 2 days away! I opened the boxes and I have been opening one birthday gift a day, because I couldnt wait a whole week to open all of them! But I still want to open some on my birthday :)

So thank you for the tights and the socks, and the beautiful scarf! Its very pretty and it is heavy so it will be warm for the snow season! (which is almost upon us...) And thank you for the white sweater! it is long sleeved :) And warm, so it will get worn for sure this winter! Thank you!

And thank you for the muffins! They were not stale at all... in fact they were the most moist muffins Ive ever had, so whatever you did worked! and I still have 2 dozen in the freezer! I might take some to district meeting on Thursday and share with everyone, but there are 14 missionaries who meet at the building and thats half of what I have left, so we shall see how charitable I am feeling on Thursday... probably pretty charitable since I dont think I could eat all of them on my own if I tried! I did leave some for the Relitz for her letting you send me a box there. She is hilarious! I love her, and brother Relitz was just released as our warm mission leader, so we know them pretty well.

What else? Well we have been CRAVING good Mexican food for a while... because white people on the east coast dont ever cook Mexican food I have found. And we had to be in and safe on Halloween early, so a member brought us dinner and they brought us some mexican food! It was glorious! and they brought ice cream as an early birthday gift, and cupcakes! So we had an early birthday party, it was great :)

Also the city of Bethlehem is weird, Im not sure if I told you this last week or not, but they trick-or-treat the Friday before Halloween.... so we also had to be in early last week and a member brought us pizza, wings and canolie's for dinner, all delivered by the same pizza man. The east coast is weird, which is why the west coast is the best coast :) haha just kidding... but not really. S. Carrigan says that a lot, shes from San Diego and already dying in the cold here. It will be a lovely winter transfer with her... shes kinda a pansy on top of that so she never takes her coat off.

Well it was kinda a slow week. Sister Carrigan has been sick off and on so random times we will be in all day. Which is kinda the worst as a missionary, because all you can do as a missionary is read your scriptures, Preach my Gospel, Jesus the Christ or write in your journal, or watch a cheesy church movie. And after a while words start to give you a headache whether your reading them or writing them... and The movies we have are like 40 minutes at the longest so its kinda long and boring to be in as a missionary. But I have written a little more in my journal, I try to write about every day, it just doesnt get written on that day.... and I have started reading Jesus the Christ but it makes me think a lot and so I have to stop after a while because I get a head ache, but its really good and I will finish it before I come home! Plus the scriptures are awesome. But Im back in Alma, and Alma is SO LONG! Its quite rude almost. All the other books fly by and then you get to Alma and your there forever! But its good stuff so Im not really complaining about it... but when S. Carrigan complains about being in Jacob back in the Isiah chapters I say suck it up, Im still in Alma. (so yeah that compassion thing, still working on it).

But we had another good Sunday! Ashley was confirmed and given the gift of the Holy Ghost at church! So it was a happy day :) And we had the Ortega girls at church, they are the less active family we have been working with. We go over there every Monday after Pday and she feeds us and we teach them and have family home evening with them. Its going okay, we are trying to get the dad at church, hes not a member, and now that his football team is over we might be able to get him there! He came inside to drop the girls off this week before his game! so that was good.

We also had our investigator Cindy come to church too. I love Cindy. She is the one that we found on our way home, I think I told you that story in my last letter.... but yeah. She is the girlfriend of a less active member and she is reading the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants and they watch the mormon channel on their roku all the time. (I dont know if you guys know what roku is, if it's new since I've come out or if its a east coast thing, but its like DVR but for specialty shows and things. So like mormon channel, or different things like that. Which is probably the worst explanation ever given, but its not important to the story anyways...)

But Cindy was at church! She had a major migraine though so they left after Sunday school, but she was there and it was awesome! We are excited to go back and talk with her again. He is soaking up what we teach and it sounds like they have already discussed most of it already. Now its just connecting all the dots and explaining why it all matters.

So it was an excellent Sunday with lots of people there!

There was also a member who got up and bore his testimony thanking Elder Holland for his talk in conference. Elder Holland talked about depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses. Our member suffers from depression, anxiety, PTSD from serving in Iraq, and on top of that he had some physical ailments that were preventing him from coming to church as often as he would like. He bore his testimony about how that talk touched him and how he is grateful that words like depression and anxiety are not taboo and that we can talk about them, lean on each other and help others work through it.

It was just another testimony to me about how much the church is progressing in so many ways. I think missionary work has been a big push lately, but to see that we are progressing in many ways! That we are able to reach out to more people and to help others in ways that we did not recognize before. I am grateful for the council of our leaders and their love and support for all the members of the church.

Man I love this Gospel! I am so excited and blessed to be a part of this work of Salvation. I cannot wait to see who else I can reach out to and share this gospel with in order to help bring them closer to their Savior. How grateful I am for my testimony and the things that I am learning and how it is changing me, for the better! There are so many things that I want to learn and develop in my life and I am grateful for this time to be able to focus on the spiritual to help me understand why I want to develop more abilities and how those can help me in an eternal sense.

One of my new favorite quotes I found this week is from sister Marjorie Pay Hinckley:

"There is something about spirituality that is central to the life of a woman. Not the kind of spirituality that only takes you to church on Sunday. I am talking about the kind of spirituality that makes you behave like a child of God."

"True spirituality make you loving and grateful, and forgiving, and patient, and gentle, and long suffering. True spirituality breathes reverence into every act and deed. It compels you to get in touch with your Heavenly Father every single day of your life" Alma 37:34, 36

I love this. Especially the first part, because it has helped me to see how spirituality works in your everyday life but doesnt 'suck the fun' out of things. It becomes a part of who you are and not just what you do. It doesnt prevent you from having fun, but enhances your understanding and broadens your views to be able to have fun in more ways than you previously knew.

This is how I hope I am able to change between now and when I come home. It will probably be a life long journey, but its one that I want to start now.

Thank you for all of your loving, kind, and encouraging words. Thank you for the cards, and birthday gifts and well wishes. I love you all and pray for you all daily. Thank you for everything you do for me! I really do appreciate it all.

LOVES! Sister Wilson