Kindra as a Sister Missionary!

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