Back to the Motherland: A legit crazy week. No other words. (week 8 in Kuna)

Familia y amigos.

I may have been saying that past weeks were crazy, but this one tops it off. It was really different and tough getting used to a new companion, but then one day, she opened up to me and told me what was going on. To sum it up, Hermana Morales was having a really hard time, struggled a bit with depression, and received revelation that she was supposed to go home. So we talked a ton with President Cannon and prayed and fasted a bunch. AND, we went on emergency exchanges a few times with the Sister Training Leader. This all happened early and in the middle of the week and then by Friday, we got the call that she would go home Saturday morning. So Friday was crazy getting all packed and moving and saying goodbyes to people while still doing missionary work. I can't believe I just summed up all that we did that day in one sentence! HA! It was wild.

So now I'm in a trio with the other Kuna Hermanas Barnes and Turner. The areas are (temporarily?) combined again and we have 18 wards that we cover. BUT, we are a TON more organized now and really on top of things. We actually had a super good planning session on Thursday where we planned the month and the week and the day. We really organized everything and wrote out all of our investigators and what they need and how we can help. We have about 15 households, and that's not including the kids and families and everything. We have a lot on our plates. And people are always giving us more referrals, which is super great. So we are nice and busy. But back to our planning session, it was a REALLY cool experience. We did lots of prayers for specific things and pondered a lot about what each person needed and what our goals SHOULD be. What Heavenly Father wanted. During that time, we had one family text us and "drop" us, which was hard, but we also saw a bunch of blessings. Like when we would only have a few hours open to set up appointments and those times were exactly perfect for the people. Or someone would be super willing and open to help us in exactly the way we needed. AND, we were setting up our goals and thinking of specific numbers that we wanted to make our goal and we'd each ponder for awhile and then when we told each other what we were thinking, it was the exact same number. WHAAAAT?! Coincidence? I think not. So even though it was a really tough week in ways, we PHYSICALLY saw so many blessings. We almost wanted to cry with how cool it was. Another thing that we're doing is fasting more this month to have success and to truly change lives. I can't believe we hadn't thought of this before. We are going to fast each Thursday if you want to pray for us or fast with us. Prayer and fasting is powerful and we're exercising our faith that we will be blessed with baptisms this month. If you want someone to pray for, please pray for the Garcia family (specifically Imelda and Antonio) and Angel Bravo.

That's something that I've really learned this week. Prayer works. Prayer changes everything. We can't do work and be missionaries without it. If we expect Heavenly Father to answer us, we have to do our part and establish that line of communication. He is our Father in Heaven and we have the ability to have a REAL relationship with Him. And we have to develop and nurture that relationship just like how we do any other relationship. It's one of my favorite things to just have someone who I can tell everything to. And He knows exactly where we're at and what we need. It's so cool!

I love my Heavenly Father and this gospel so much. It is true.

Con amor,

Hermana Shirley

Pictures:

1) Hermana Morales.

2) During our planning, we realized we had 5 different preach my gospels out. That's what happens when we're dual language. HAHA!

3) A car we drove behind. MISUENO. My dream. HA!