Un Año lleno De Jesús

Hey howdy hey!!! I'm almost a cowgirl can you tell?

Let's run it back (like a month oops)! First of all I've never been so cold in my life. Do NOT go door knocking without like 5 layers when the wind chill is literally negative 16, yeah big mistake. Couple big milestones were achieved: turned 20 and I've decided I want to be 19 again, been out for 11 months #oldmissionary eww, first zone conference of 2024, and Sister LeClere is turning me into a cowgirl and I'm all for it. I won't make this extremely long even though I haven't written in a sec, but a couple lessons I learned this past month:

1. I still don't know where anything is here. I had my first exchange with Sister Doutt and I had to lead out the area, but come to find out I was completely reliant on google maps surprise surprise I'm still directionally challenged hahaha. Sister Doutt taught me how to pound on doors when knocking and I taught her that getting DQ at 10am in the morning is perfectly ok, we made a good duo lol.

2. Simple lessons sometimes are the most powerful. We had an amazing past two lessons with our friend Abner about the significance of sacrament and sincerity in prayer, both were such simple principles, but the Spirit was so strong and Abner seemed to get a lot more out of them than our other lessons. We're hoping to invite him to be baptized again soon, he's so close!!!

3. I love my zone. I have never felt so united in a zone as much as I do in New Albany. Our ZLs and STLs are the best, always working shoulder to shoulder with us in everything we do and encouraging everyone to give their all. We had an amazing ZC in which we decided that as a zone we would be finding 100 friends in one week, when they asked if we could do it, every person in that room immediately raised their hand. It was POWERFUL, I wish you all could have felt that unity. I've never felt anything like it. The theme of that zc was look forward with an eye of faith, that's what we felt, we were ready to look forward for a miracle.

Spoiler alert: we found 113 friends that week as a zone!!! Big things

4. CFM got me with the vision of the tree of life this week. You can't have a loose grip on the iron rod if you want to make it to the tree, you have to "hold fast" to it in every step of the way. Obedience wise, don't come down, not even a little bit. Stay by the tree and hold fast to the rod.

Random moments

- friday President McGinn told us we couldn't use our cars due to weather and me and hermana Jackson, being the crazy hermanas we are, decided to bike hahaha, so we biked in the snow with wind in our faces, fingers and toes numb, to an apartment complex and knocked doors, but don't worry you guys there was a heated laundry room for shelter

- found SO many haitian creole people, they speak some spanish so we are trying to teach them, but hoping to get some creole book of mormons to give them, they are the cutest people ever I love them

- got almost spoon fed gravy by a little haitian creole girl who then proceeded to dump it in my gloves lol

- we had a lesson with Yanuriz and Angel who we haven't seen in like 2 weeks!!! missed them so much, we talked about fasting and fast offerings and it was the best, they loved it, also they made us take pizza with us on the way out, we tried to escape but when I hugged yanuriz she wouldn't let go until we would take pizza hahaha

- angel asked us if we could marry people outside of the church, like for example, their son

- we started visiting this lady named Maria and I swear her cat is actually a dog

I thought you all might like to know that I've decided I don't want to end my mission ever. I didn't realize how much I would come to love just being in the service of the Lord day in and day out, and I can't say I've loved every day, but I've come to treasure this time so much. One of my favorite things to tell people is that the days won't always be good, but God will always be good, and there's good in every day thanks to Him. The mission has taught me to reflect on how merciful God is, His hand is so apparent in this work, He gets to work with stubborn, wannabe cowgirl missionaries like me to touch the hearts of His children, to bring them home to Him, and in the process, He's changing me. I've always been kinda terrified of change. I started my mission hearing the phrase "forget yourself and get to work" a dozen times too many. I didn't like the idea of losing who I was to give myself completely over to the Lord. But that's what trust is. And I've come to find that forgetting myself doesn't mean losing who I am. Our identity never changes, we will always be children of God. And my personality ain't going to change either, I am and always will be obsessed with ice cream, sassy as all get out, and lover of country music. BUT, forgetting yourself does mean that sacrifice is inevitable and needful. You have to give up some of what you love, the things that hold you back from being the disciple of Jesus Christ that He needs. It means loving God first. I love the quote: "Sacrifice is giving up something good for something better." God has something better for me in mind than what I thought was best, and I'm learning to really trust that, to let Him change me into the missionary He needs now, and the disciple He wants for eternity. This isn't 18 months, it's a lifelong investment in something of priceless worth, so I'm deciding to make it count. It's the same for all of you! Whether or not you choose to serve, or served in the past, you get to choose what matters most, what you will fully devote yourself to. We had a district council a few weeks back and I was asked to give a training on urgency. As always, I studied and realized that the topic was especially meant for me hahaha. God knows a thing or two. But I came to realize that you won't give your all if what you're doing doesn't mean everything to you. So make it mean something, let God prevail in your life, let Him be first in everything, embrace a sense of urgency is this work, and be ALL in.

2 Corinthians 5:17 "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." It's a new year yall, that's the beautiful thing, you get to start over, start fresh. I love this quote (yeah another one sorryyy) "tomorrow is fresh with no mistakes in it." - Anne of green gables This year is fresh with no mistakes in it, you can choose how to fill it, so make it full of Jesus

Les quiero a todos!!!

- hermana neil

Fotos

- we wrecked everyone in scripture zc competition

- Sisters pic feat sister mcginn

- louisville crew cryyyyy

- bday stuff

- love Jasper murals

- piano girl forever

- car selflie

- dq pit stop

- car selfie pt 2