Transfer 4 Week 2

Holy cow. It's already Monday. This past week FLEW by!!! It's so crazy.

What is also so crazy is trying to gather a consistant teaching pool of investigators. This past week we had 10 Less active/recent convert appointments but NOTHING else!!!! I forgot what it is like to not have consistent investigators, so my comp and I are working hard to make our potentials turn solid. We have the Stones--a less active woman married to a nonmember from ENGLAND!! They are a super sweet family and have offered to feed us whenever. And everyone knows that the fastest way to getting someone baptized is through their stomachs (I just made that up right now...). We have Delekia (deh-lee-key-uh) and Bryan Gastanau who have potential to be GOLD (Delekia said in our first meeting with her "when I get baptized...."), Alexis, girlfriend to Tyler who just got baptized this past week and whose mom is a member but inactive, and the Butell family, less active parents with a child or two not baptized. MAN!!! So many flowers we have in our garden, we just need time to pick them ALL!!! but we are working hard, and giving it our all, and that's all we can do.

Today is my 5 month mark since I've been gone from home. Tomorrow will be 5 months since I've been on my mission. I can't believe how quickly time moves when you're a missionary. I feel like I just came out yesterday from the MTC. I still know nothing, but at the same time I've grown and learned EVERYTHING in this short space of time. It's so weird. And I've finally gotten to the point where going home is sad and scary to me. Before I had the mentallity "oh, home is just around the corner and I'll be able to pick up where I left off." But that is NOT the case!! I was driving home from the mission office (we got a new car and it is WRANK nasty--but we're thankful we have a car) and I was thinking about the Elders who just went home, and BAM fear struck my very soul over the thought of me going home. I love it here. I could stay here forever if I could talk to my family and friends on the phone once a week. I have everything I could ever need at my fingertips--scriptures to read, people to teach and love, dinner every night, a free place to stay...nothing is promised when you come home. I never thought I'd ever get to this point where it actually frightens me to come home. But I'm here, and I don't know whether to love this feeling or hate it. I'll just be content with acknowleding that it's there and move on with life. But this really is the best time in anyone's life. You learn so much about who you are and who you need to be, and how it's possible to become that. You recognize your full potential. I could never imagine the person I would be had I not come on this mission. Yes, I would still be good. But I wouldn't fully understand the potential I had to succeed in the gospel and to become who my Heavenly Father wants me to be. It's a beautiful thing to recognize our potential, and then to help others recognize it. Nothing brings me greater joy.

And the blessings I've been getting!! HOLY, HOLY, HOLY MOLY (a Zone joke). Pre-mission I was trying (and failing) to teach myself guitar. WHY suddenly on my mission is it so much easier??? Sadly enough my comp and I have to return our borrowed guitar soon to this family, but I can play some songs!!! Granted I'm no pro or nuffin, but I could play with the likes of Taylor Swift!!! It's exciting to see and recognize how the Lord blesses us.

This work is INSANELY amazing. I have heard return missionaries talk about how much they loved their mission and the people, blah blah blah, but I didn't understand until now that I'm HERE and doing it. I think I'm going to be the RM who always talks about "this one time on my mission..." and then laugh at the joke no one else understands except a fellow RM. Oh man....but I'm excited for that day. I'm excited that I can be an example to my friends and family and that through my service they can be blessed.

Isn't life beautiful? The mountains are, the sunset is, the beautiful weather we've been having (low of 60 at night, high of 87-90--BEAUTIFUL). Everything around us speaks the Lord's name. He lives. He's around us. He's in EVERYTHING. How is it possible for there to be mountains? How can little tiny babies grow into adults? It's so so SO crazy how much I realize the Lord's hand is in now that I'm a missionary and don't have distractions in my life like music and the computer and internet and a cell phone. Amazing how blinded we are by technologies that make everything fast and easy for us.

I love all of you so much and encourage you to open your eyes and recognize how God and blessed us in everything.

Until next week--
Sister Mack