Sweet November Air

Dear Family,

I am loving the cooler weather here. It's still only like 80 degrees, but I am busting out the scarves and sweaters! This morning while doing some shopping, Christmas music was playing over the radio... YIKES, it's still way too early for that, but I'm still giddy about the holiday season! What are y'alls plans for Thanksgiving? We'll have our big feast of the day at the Hauck's. Sister Hauck is an amazing cook, so I'm excited. 

I got the letter you sent in the mail, Mom. I can't tell you how happy handwritten letters make me! I'm writing you and Borgs back today. 

We had quite the week. 9 investigators dropped us and more than half of our appointments fell through. It would have been incredibly discouraging, except we knew that we'd done the best we could, so all we could do was continue to look forward. A midst those occasional setbacks, I feel the Spirit move the work (and me) along all of the time. It truly is miraculous. 

Can you believe it's the end of August?

Dear Family,

Happy first day of school! I'm so excited to see pictures and read all about it. Hard to believe how old everyone is. When does Jake head back up to school? (P.S. I laughed when Jake said my emails are too detailed.. Sorry Jakey! There's just too much to say about missionary life) 

So this week was so awesome, but also so hard. There were some points that just felt brutal. One morning, I just broke down basically sobbing in the car.. sometimes the weight of our responsibilities and my frustration with my weaknesses is too overwhelming. Sister Cook is so good to me, though, and always knows just what to say to encourage and strengthen me. She immediately called Brother Mundy and asked if he could give me a blessing. He'd just gotten home from work, so we stopped everything and headed over. He told me that days like that day will come, and that I'll feel Satan working especially hard on me because I am "a choice daughter, and Heavenly Father has a great work for me to do". I know he's right, but sometimes it seems next to impossible to fight off discouraging thoughts, so I do what you've always told me to do, Mom.. just let myself feel it, and then get over it and get to work. I'm not sure what we'd do without the Mundy's though... they are our go-to family. We love them so much. Earlier this week we went over to their home to have a lesson with them at the end of the day (we try to schedule in appointments with members at the end of the day because contacting is hard at night - especially in Havasu since there's no street lights). We shared some thoughts on CHANGE and how that is the central purpose of the Gospel; to change our natures to become more like God. We had them listen to a clip from Elder Holland's talk "The First Great Commandment" from October 2012. Oh, his words are powerful. His message boils down to this: once we have known the Savior, and felt the power of His Gospel, and partaken in the goodness of His Gospel, nothing is to ever be the same. We cannot go back to who we were before - we must work and sweat and labor and further His cause. He expects "our love and our loyalty at EVERY stage of our lives." (please go listen to it all; it's a message each of us needs to hear again and again) Then we had them watch the "Because of Him" video the church put out at Easter. I never tire of watching it. Both Brother and Sister Mundy were touched and said, "You two had no idea coming in here what we're going through at this time. But that was EXACTLY what we needed to hear. Thank for being the deliverers of that message. You are so in tune. Whatever you guys are doing throughout your days is exactly what you're supposed to be doing.. Whatever you're studying in your studies, whatever you're saying in your prayers, whatever you're talking about and thinking about - you're doing it right. Because that was powerful." WOW, what better feeling than to feel that you're doing something right, despite your inadequacies? I know the message didn't come from us, but it sure felt good to be the mouthpiece.