This umbrella be TWEAKIN'
 

Hello hello hello!!! Welcome back to the tales of Hermana Allen. Pretty exciting stuff. This week was definitely full of ups and downs, but mostly ups. ALSO!! T-MINUS 18 DAYS TILL I GET SHIPPED OFF TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE EQUATOR!! LETS GOOOOO!!! Never been more pumped in my LIFE!! Also two percent terrified. BUT!! Never been more pumped. Send prayers everything goes smoothly and I can get out there! 

THINGS THAT MADE ME LAUGH:

• I got my booster shot this week, since it is necessary to get into Uruguay. Me and my comps had several conversations about how getting sick is all just mental, and how you won't get sick if you believe you won't. (Pretty sure that's not how it works, but that's what we decided) So I decided that I wasn't going to get sick from the booster shot, since both times I got the vaccine, I got SO sick. So I was dead set on not getting sick. Aaaaaand then I did. Like. Real sick. Lol so my comps made fun of me for getting sick cause I "didn't believe hard enough". So I'm here laying on the couch near death, and my comps are making fun of me. Mostly making me laugh, which made me cough. Honestly, what would I do without them? Way to kick a dog when it's down. 

• We had a lesson that was a straight up MIRACLE but it honestly was as probably the hardest I've ever laughed on my mission. We had a lesson with some other sisters, with a guy named Shaud. The other sisters were teaching him, but he's a YSA so he needs to be passed off to us, so we taught a lesson together so he'd know us without just kinda shoving him into it. And guys. Shaud is really and honestly, the funniest person I've ever met. I was literally wheezing at every single thing he said. This dude didn't let me stop laughing from the last thing before he threw in another thing that just straight up killed me. But tbh, he didn't say a lot of things that were all that funny, it was just the way he said it. He grunted and screamed a lot in order to tell his stories, and made all sorts of sound effects. Gahahah it was too funny, but it makes me sad not everyone can experience the full Shaud experience. My favorite quotes of his though are "oh that's straight buttah" (he says this every two seconds) Or "this umbrella be TWEAKIN'" in addition to "guys I kinda be hatin' church cause everyone is TOO NICE. They all out here asking me if i live around here "you from around here?" "You live around here?" "You from around here?" yall get a script when you baptized??" Also it was so cold, and he was scared his nose was running so every two minutes he'd go "there something in my nose?" And flare his nostrils so we could all see. Gahahah he is so funny. Also he's getting baptized on January 29 so LET'S GOOO!!

MILAGRITOS:

• Oh my heck, this one is awesome. So our friend Joey, who just happened to be the very first lesson I taught on my mission, has been meeting with us a lot. Honestly, it has kinda been just to be nice, and because he is curious about our church. But we (the Spirit) taught a lesson this week that totally changed that. We taught him about the Atonement, as well as everything that happens after this life. (For all yall missionaries, second half of the second lesson). And it just clicked in his brain. Over and over, he described it as "so hopeful" and "realistic" and it "makes sense" and at one point he said several times "this has to be true. It has to be true, it just has to be." I've heard several missionaries ask if about experiences we've had when we saw someone just "get it" and it just flipped a switch in their brain, and honestly I didn't know if I'd ever see that. But I've never seen it so obviously as with Joey. You could quite literally see the wheels turning in his head. I've never seen anything like it and I really hope I never ever forget it. It made me SO grateful for this plan of HAPPINESS that we have. Because why would a God who loves us, simply give us one chance on this earth? Why would He not give us chance after chance, to CHOOSE HIM?? He wants us SO bad to return to Him, but He has always given us choice, so why wouldn't he be reaching His hands out, begging us to come to Him? As many chances as it takes? Wouldn't that just. Make sense? (Cheat sheet: It does make sense) 

ANYWAY this email is pretty short cause I'm running out of time, but I LOVE YOU ALL I HOPE LIFE IS SO GOOD FOR YOU! GO LISTEN TO SOME GOOD MUSIC OR GO GET YOUR HEAD 10 FEET OFF THE GROUND! 

-Hermana Allen