week 1

Well its about time! i feel like it has been ages since i got to email home. haha maybe it was just a really long week. super stressful for me and i have been running on maybe 2 hours of sleep a night. so that is fun too. but im not complaining. i am just trying to take everything in stride and do the best i can to learn from all my experiences.

So transfer meeting was good. I got to see two of my favorite elders go home so that was good. They opened two more sisters areas in our zone and flushed the elders out, sisters are slowly taking over THE mission! its crazy. Our favorite LA lady drove us and we had a nice talk. i love her lots. she is returning to church after being away for 20+ years. when we got home we went to this huge event at the civic center here in beaumont called a Tasting. its a fund raiser for the food bank here. so all the churches in beaumont set up a booth and serve some kind of food. tons and tons fo ppl go and eat lots of food. and we served bread at the booth that the church had set up. it was pretty fun. we got to meet lots of ppl and pass out lots of mormon.org cards. haha then we had a social at the instutute to go to because we cover the singles branch here as well. i dont know if i told you that or not. but we cover the family ward with the ZL's and then the singles branch also. so that is keeping up busy.

Karen had to practice her baptism for 3 hours on wednesday. she is really scared and now it isnt even happening anymore. it is really sad and i am really frustrated because i feel ike it is my fault because she says that i am a horrible teacher and i am making up al of these commandments and we should tell ppl about them before we try and get them to get baptized. so keep praying for her. she knows the book of mormon is true, she just needs to have a deeper testimony of Joseph smith.

James is doing good. he is still as cute as ever. He told us that he is going to start going back to his wifes church just to make sure about everything. he is really impressed with our church and he loves all the ppl and he feels good when he comes even tho he cant hear anything. he just wants to make sure he knows everything because when he commits to something he puts in 110% so he wants to make sure he Knows what we are teaching him is true. But keep praying for him.

We are having a hard time finding, well finding those who are ready and want to commit. We have a lot of potential investigators but none of thm want to keep commitments and are never home when we come back for appointments. But this is all part of the work and it happens so i just have to keep working harder and harder. maybe if we knock on every single door in beaumont we will find people who want to hear about the Gospel. We are trying really hard to help our members get excited about misisonary work because the investigators that are the most solid are the ones who have member friends. so that is what we are working on is member referrals.easier said then done. I think that everyone is afraid of misisonary work. whenever they hear that word they stop listening. haha but i guess i have no room to talk cause i wasnt doing misisonary work before i was a missionary. haha but that is going to change when i get home!

Well I had to sing in STAKE CONFERENCE on saturday. ahhhhhh i didnt eat anything all day because i was so nervous and my tummy was all churny. i was so sick. haha i hate singing. but as a misisonary you do whatever ppl ask you to. and being on a mission in general is out of my comfort zone so i might as well just do everything that makes me get out of my zone. haha at least i am a sister missionary so even if i sounded horrible everyone says you didi good cause your a missionary. haha but im glad that is over!

So i wish i had some awesome thing to tell you about all the amazing things that i learned this week but all i can thing to say is that i have a long way to go when it comes to charity and patience. I thought i was doing my hardest to be full of love and patience but when it got put to the test i learned that i didnt have as much as i thought i did. As missionaries we cant get complacent. just when we think we are doing good, getting the hang of things, and we think we know what we are doing things change and everything you have and are is put to the test and you are given a new challenge. i think the same thing happens in life. We shouldnt ever be comfortable where we are. there is always room to grow and improve and if we think we are doing good we must not be looking hard enough. Acknowledge the savior, increase our commitment to follow him more each day. That is what i am trying my best to do. it is hard and sometimes the things i go thru are painful and they break my heart and tear at my very foundation of what i am, but at the end i always turn to my savior and he helps me tru the lessons that i have to learn as a missionary. "And now my beloved brethren after ye have gotten into this strait and narrow path  i would ask if all is done? behold i say unto you nay for ye have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ with unshaken faith in him relying wholly upon the merits oh him who is mighty to save. Wherefore ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ having a perfect brightness of hope and a love of God and of all men. wherefore if ye shall press forward and endure to the end behold thus saith the father ye shall have eternal life." 2 Nephi 31; 19-20. This is so true. All is not done. we have to do more then just be on the path. And that is my hope and my prayer to all of you, that you will do all you can to bring others onto this path and do more then just be there yourself. There are so many people out there who do now have the gospel and we need to share what we have with them!