"KEEP IT LIEK BUTTA" - Shaud (every two seconds)

Hellooooo everybody!! I hope you all had a swell week and school and work and life are just going grand!! This week was CRAZY!! So many last minute things for Uruguay, and a bunch of lessons and things to do. First and foremost, I leave the country in 4 days. Please send prayers I figure out how to manage an airport haha. Anyway, I'm so pumped, but SO sad to be leaving Maryland. I love these people SO much and I sure will miss them. But I am so excited to meet more people across the world I love with my entire heart too. Well, let's get into it. I figured today I'd start of with a spiritual thought. 

SPIRITUAL THOUGHT:

Guys, I am SO grateful for temples. Pretty much every day, many times a day, we get to invite people to the temple open house. And yall have no idea how sad I am about missing that. It is going to be beautiful and spiritual and sacred. How cool is it that so many people get the opportunity to be in the House of the Lord? Literally a home for our God! HOW INCREDIBLE IS THAT?? Before I wanted to serve a mission, I considered a several month humanitarian trip. Which would have been incredible and it would have changed my life and hopefully many other people's. Because people need hope in this world and they need the skills to succeed and resources to do so. And that is SO important. But what is far far more important than earthly needs? Eternal happiness. We literally have the ability to grant people exaltation if they choose to make and keep covenants with God. What more could you want than being happy, FOREVER?? THAT is why I am on a mission, to give people that same hope, but in a never ending way. And exactly why temple work is so important and why we want to let other people see this. The promises made in the temple are of eternal importance. The spirit in the temple is real. It is the house of the Lord. It is a place to go to help you feel that everlasting joy. God is so good. 

MILAGRITOS:

• I got all my visa stuff for Uruguay done, which had a lot of detours and such, but we got there!! Woo woo!! That is definitely a miracle. 

• Our friend Shaud got BAPTIZED!!! Ahhh I am SO happy for him. Since other sisters were teaching him, and he goes to the YSA ward just in addition to the other ward (he usually goes to 3 different sacrament meetings every week) we weren't actually allowed to go to it, but we got to watch over zoom, and it was so amazing. Shaud is so incredible, and his whole life he's been preparing to make that covenant with God, and he didn't even realize it. He came to sports night the night before his baptism, and I got to talk to him for a bit, and it was seriously amazing to see how pumped he was to make this change in his life and also for the pizza rolls he was gonna have after. He was pretty pumped about the pizza rolls. Pizza rolls and eternal happiness in one day, what more could you want?? 

• Also at sports night, I got the chance to sit down and talk to Nobanza. He is awesome. He shows up to sports night every week, and has for a few months now, and brings his kids almost every time, who are SO cute. The elders thought we were teaching him and we thought the elders were teaching him, but turns out out he's a member. Of what ward, we don't know. But he comes to sports night and he's an insane soccer player so we'll take him. But I got to sit and talk to him for a bit, and I asked him what the most exciting thing was that happened to him last week. And he got a little teary eyed and asked how I knew to ask him that question. Turns out, just that morning, he had gotten the news that his mom, who lives in his home country, got her visa and stuff to come move here. And she's coming this next week. And Nobanza had been working on this for two whole years, and has seen his mom twice since 2011. And so we chatted all about that and how exciting that was, and he came up to me at the end and let me know how much it meant to him, because I was the first person he told, and he couldn't believe that I would be so excited for him and how he would never forget me. Which literally was so cool because this guy has been at sports night for months, and just now I got around talking to him, which shows the Lord has a plan. He knows our lives and our needs and will send people our way who we need. And I sure needed Nobanza this week. 

• Gah this week was so tough, because I went to church in English for the last time in a year, but mostly because I had to say goodbye to friends I've made over the last 5 months. And sometimes Satan gets into your head and makes you think you didn't make a difference, but then the Lord steps right in and people say things that make you just stand there in awe that the Lord is so good. One lady in the ward we've been friends with hugged me so tight and told me she would miss me so much, and then told me it was a huge deal she was saying this because she hadn't liked missionaries for a LONG time before me and my comps came along. All I know is it wasn't me who changed anything, but it's cool to be an instrument in that change, just showing up at someone's door and letting the Lord do the heart softening. And then there was literally a line in the foyer to get pictures with us missionaries (since it's transfers this week, one of my companions is also leaving) and so many people expressed their gratitude to us. It blows my mind that when I got my mission call, I thought I would be speaking Spanish, in a foreign country, to old people and their kids, walking to church, in the middle of the hood (or as hoody as you can get in Uruguay). And somehow I ended up here. In the middle of "Louis Vuitton scarf and Tiffany jewelry" Maryland, speaking English, to kids my age. And yet somehow, it's all the same. I am SO excited for Uruguay, but I'm also SO grateful Heavenly Father sent me on this little 5 month pit stop to fall in love with Maryland. 

• At the beginning of my mission, during new missionary training, our mission presidents wife, Sister Neilson gave us all a sticker that says "this is EXACTLY what I signed up for" because she had heard over and over and over missionaries and people in general saying "this is not what I signed up for" in reference to covid restrictions, reassignments, hard companions, and so on. But when we turned in our mission papers, even when we made the choice to live on this earth, this is EXACTLY what we signed up for!! And this week, I had the idea to write in the back of my Book of Mormon a cute little thing that said "THEY are EXACTLY who I signed up for" and below it I wrote the name of anyone I've taught a lesson to, met at service, had even one interaction and knew their name, all the members in the ward I knew, and so on. And looking at that list, it was cool to see that in one area, in only 5 months, I was able to "sign up" to be blessed by SO many people. It is kinda awesome. So when life gets hard, try and remember that this is exactly what you signed up for, and maybe remember WHO you signed up for as well!! PS this doesnt fall under the miracle category but I already shared a spiritual thought, and so that was the spiritual thought pt. 2

• I finished the Book of Mormon! I made a goal on January 2nd to finish the Book of Mormon in spanish before I left to Uruguay. And this morning, I FINISHED IT!! It's literally the fasted I've ever read it, and it was in a different language. Kinda cool how the Gift of Tongues is real, and also how many insights I got from reading it in a different language. And my ability and speed of reading Spanish literally SKYROCKETED from the beginning of this month till now. SO YAY for the Lord for helping through that one. The Book of Mormon is awesome. And so so true. In case you were wondering. 

THINGS THAT MADE ME LAUGH:

• Guys. The lady walking her dog down the middle of the busy road WAS BACK AGAIN. And we saw her. And this time some car honked at her, and she waved her hand at it like they were in her way and they needed to get the heck out of there. Imagine the chaos in our car when we saw her again haha. 

• The quote from our district leader, immediately after he spelled a word wrong, and it spelled a bad word "Guys I need to learn to spell just so I can keep the spirit with me"

• The fact that our carbon monoxide alarm/fire alarm went off, but only one set of beeps, at around 10:15 on Saturday night, and so instead of being dutiful little missionaries (cause we have three fire alarms and only one went off so we figured it was fine) we opened a window (and it was 24 degrees outside) put on coats and fuzzy socks, vlogged it, and went to bed just hoping the carbon monoxide didn't kill us over night. We had a cute lil celebration at 6:30am the next morning when we woke up alive. 

OKAY ALL!! I LOVE YOU!! HAVE A GREAT WEEK AND PLEASE SEND PRAYERS I DON'T DIE ON FRIDAY!! Y'ALL ARE GEMS. 

- Hermana Allen