English, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, Hindi, and German :)

Hey all!! Happy Monday, yet again! There's not that much to say at the beginning of this, except I bought a new hat this week so I'm excited about that. 

MILAGRITOS:

• This week we had like 5 people say they were gonna come to church, and none of them showed up. But this one dude who didnt say he was gonna come, showed up to church with a button up shirt and a tie and LOVED it, so that was a fun lil miracle that made my day. 

JAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAs of the week:

• One night, we were at a member's house, and they gave us a reference of someone who might be interested in learning about the gospel. Well, that's great and all, but they let us know that he didn't in fact speak spanish. Or English. Or even Portuguese. This dude was from Russia and didn't speak a word of Spanish. How these members became friends with him is beyond me, but that's besides the point. Well, he lived in the area of the elders so we sent them to find this Russian man. After like five times looking for him, they found him. And one of the elders only spoke Spanish, the other is a gringo who speaks pretty good Spanish, but has a brother who speaks Russian. So the lesson went like this, the gringo calling his brother and telling him what to say in Russian to this man. Then if the elder who only spoke Spanish wanted to talk, he had to tell the gringo and the gringo had to tell his brother and the brother told the Russian man. I wasn't there, but the elders told us about the lesson and I honestly would pay money to have been there. Hope Mr Russian Man wants to go to church haha. 

SHPIRITUAL SHPEEL:

Missionaries from Utah have this unwritten rule. When people on the street ask where youre from, you say United States. When members ask, you say Utah. Well, at church, one of the members came up to me and asked me where I was from, and I said "Utah" and he then asked me which part, when I said Kaysville, he said he wasn't familiar with it. I asked him if he had been to Utah and he told me yeah. He said "I went for General Conference. I was there for three days and I came right back." And my first thought was "wow, that's a lot of faith to pay for a ticket and only stay for 3 days." Well, I then realized that he didn't speak english. He flew all the way to Utah, to go to General Conference, just to put on some headphones and hear the Conference through those. And the thought came to my mind "well why would you do that? You can just watch the same thing on TV and it's a whole lot less expensive." And a very clear thought came to my head immediately after. "He went to feel." He went to feel the Spirit. To feel the presence of the prophet of God. To feel the power of thousands of people gathered, all listening to the word of God, in whatever language they spoke. And then I realized, in a way, that I did the exact same thing. I came here, to Uruguay, to feel. To feel love for God's kids. To feel the Spirit. To feel promptings from the Holy Ghost. To feel sadness even, and anger and frustration and completely and utterly alone. To feel pure joy, the inexpressible kind. To feel myself growing and becoming more who I want to be. To feel my Savior with me. In the scriptures, there are a bunch of references to "the promised land" but something so interesting is that there's a different promised land for every group of people. Nephi, and Moses, and the modern day pioneers, etc. And I thought about going home after my mission. And how maybe that's my promised land. And then really quick I backtracked that idea. I think right here. On the floor of my apartment where I'm writing this shpiritual shpeel, is my promised land. God gave me instructions to get here. I followed. And my traveling didn't take years, but I've been in this little promised land of mine for about a year and a half now. It's not the "where" that makes a promised land a promised land, its a feeling. It's how I feel here. It's how I see God's hand in my life. It's how I can look back on my life a year ago and two years ago and see that "I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do. Nevertheless, I went forth" When I was younger, I thought of the promised land as a paradise. And maybe it is. But maybe it's a paradise cause you get to know God some more. Cause you get to feel His presence more. Whether we fly across the world to feel His presence, for three days, for a year and a half, for a lifetime. Or whether we just take a drive up into the mountains to feel Him, or go to our room to say a prayer, or go to church, or the temple, or our car, that's our promised land. Cause God has led us there, and we have "gone forth" to feel Him. I have no doubt that when I go home, I'll have experiences that'll make Kaysville and Provo and wherever I live for the rest of life a little promised land. But for now, for this little year and a half journey, Uruguay and DC have been my promised lands. Places I went to FEEL Him. To SEE His hand. To HEAR His voice. To EXPERIENCE His love. That's what a promised land is. Somewhere where He is. And I am pretty dang grateful that He has been with me this last year and a half. And that He's been with you all this last year and a half too, wherever you've been. Cause whether we're in our promised land, or we're on our way, or even if we've decided to ditch our promised land entirely, He's there. Expecting us and leading us there. He's there. Right next to us as we feel His presence. He's there. Waiting anxiously for us to return. He's there. So "go forth" to Him. 

Love you all!! And God loves you more!!

- hermana allen