Week 42: Homeward Bound!

Sis. Bueno pointing to the Medicine Hat Teepee.

Well, I wrote a few weeks ago about how much easier it is to talk the talk than walk the walk. In the weeks since then I've been doing LOTS of talking the talk, but now it looks like it's time to walk the walk! I got a call from my mission president last night saying that I'm being released because of my asthma, which is...kinda lame? Anyway, I'm flying back to DC on Monday afternoon, so I'll see you all (or most of you, from an appropriate social distance) next week!

In the meantime, I still had a VERY exciting last full week in the mission field! It turns out I actually don't have tonsillitis, but the nurse thought I had mono instead for a hot second and then my sore throat went away entirely! And it turns out I'm okay. A minor miracle? Faith healing? On Thursday my throat was still a little sore and we had a video call lesson with some members and they asked if they could bring us fudgesicles and I was like, um, of course? The lesson I learned is that you can't ask members for ANYTHING because we opened our door and there were THREE bags of groceries on the doorstep. They're so sweet. We are VERY well provided for. 

Because we don't have dinner appointments with members of the ward anymore, we get to watch movies on our phones! So far I have seen Ephraim's Rescue, 17 Miracles, The Singles Ward (for like, the 12th time), and The Other Side of Heaven. They all made me cry. Except for The Singles Ward. But we've still been hanging out with members by having online lessons with them! We shared a message with our stake president and his wife on Elder Stevenson's talk from General Conference about doing a spiritual seismic upgrade. After the lesson, Sister Salmon (the stake president's wife) asked how we chose that talk and we said that it just stood out to both of us. And she told us that it was inspiration because that was the one talk that both she and President Salmon fell asleep during. The Spirit works in mysterious ways.

On Saturday night we had a lesson with one of our returning members who really struggles to keep the Word of Wisdom (for my friends not of our faith: not drinking coffee, tea, or alcohol, or using tobacco or other drugs) and he LOVES his coffee, and we've been trying to help him strengthen his testimony, so we talked a lot about promises associated with reading The Book of Mormon and asked him if he'd stop drinking coffee if he knew that it was true. He admitted that he probably would, and we talked about the power of acting in faith in order to receive a witness and Sister Bueno invited him to throw away all of his coffee so he wouldn't be tempted to drink it! Well, he did NOT like that idea, he kept saying "oh no! oh, no no no!" and making crying noises. He couldn't bring himself to get rid of it, but we did come up with a better solution: after the closing prayer, we drove to his house and he threw coffee to us from 6 feet away inside his house. So now we have a grocery bag with 5 bags of coffee in it in our apartment! It was in our pantry on Saturday night and we opened the pantry on Sunday morning and the whole thing smelled like coffee. He told us it was like $18 a bag, so it turns out that we have $90 worth of coffee. Good times!

On Monday we went to volunteer at the food bank and they're always giving the missionaries a WHOLE bunch of treats, so I was like, watch them give us a whole cake today! And then when we were at the food bank, Donovan (the guy who is in charge) was like, "don't forget to grab a cake on the way out!" That is what we like to call the spirit of prophecy.

Obviously, the highlight of my week was EASTER! #Heisrisen! We did the worldwide fast on Friday and then on Sunday we had an awesome sacrament meeting with our district and our members gave us Easter gift bags with toilet papers and copies of the new proclamation on the restoration. It was awesome. Our members are the best! 

This week I've been reading 2 Nephi 31 (yes, I know that I'm BEHIND on my Come, Follow Me), and verse 12 says "And also, the voice of the Son came unto me, saying: He that is baptized in my name, to him will the Father give the Holy Ghost, like unto me; wherefore, follow me, and do the things which ye have seen me do." I love that! If there is something I have learned on my mission, it is that Christianity is all about FOLLOWING Christ. As we remember Him during the Easter season (and every season!), He invites us to follow in His footsteps and become like Him! Even though people at Church aren't perfect, we're all trying to be a little bit more like Jesus. So we all have the opportunity to learn and grow and forgive and change together. Just how it was meant to be!

I hope everybody has a great week! I'll write you from Maryland!

ALL my love (or as President Keung would say, arohatinonui),

Sister Willis ❤

Week 41: House Arrest

General Conference Breakfast

Last Wednesday night we got a call from the mission nurse saying that if anyone had any symptoms we needed to let her know immediately. And I had kind of a sore throat so I told her that and we were IMMEDIATELY brought into a 10-day isolation in case I had the coronavirus! We spent all week inside our apartment. I have spent upwards of ten hours every day on the couch. And because Canadians don't wear shoes inside, I haven't put shoes on for almost a whole week! My sore throat was all gone by Sunday, so I was like, HA! I DON'T have covid! And then yesterday I woke up and my throat was hurting again and last night the mission nurse called and left a message saying she wanted to check in and potentially lift our isolation, and I was like, oh HECK. My sore throat is back! There's no way we're getting out of isolation now. Anyway, we called the nurse and explained the situation. I was very confused because normally sore throats don't leave and then come back. And then, all of a sudden, the nurse was like, "Sister Willis, have you had your tonsils removed?" And I told her that I have not had my tonsils removed and she made Sister Bueno check my tonsils in the light and sure enough, they were nice and inflamed! So that was super fun. The nurse came over to check it out last night and she said that I for sure have infected tonsils and that the infection is spreading to my lymph nodes! So the good news is that I do NOT have coronavirus and we're not in isolation anymore! The bad news is that instead I have TONSILLITIS! The nurse is trying to get me some antibiotics to kill the tonsillitis. Hopefully that works out soon. 

Nutell-2-Go from the food bank

This week has been a lot of sitting. Sitting during meetings, sitting watching conference, sitting during lessons. The good news is that we've had a lot of lessons! Without travel time and with the video call breaking up, it's pretty easy to keep our lessons short enough to squeeze a bunch together. We spent the end of last week talking with a lot of our members about the restoration to get everyone nice and prepared for general conference. Which was AMAZING! Everybody always asks what everyone's favorite talk is and every time someone mentions a talk I'm like, that's it! That's my favorite talk! Because they were all so good. But I really really liked Elder Renlund's talk about the new heart and Elder Uchtdorf's talk about video calling the missionaries! You're bored, your local missionaries are bored, and they would love a referral! Go to comeuntochrist.org to get in touch with them 😉. And it really hit home when Elder Holland quoted the returned missionary who said "I didn't come this far to only come this far." We had a mission-wide meeting on Monday (over zoom) and President Keung talked about the children of Israel and Lehi's family who were on long and difficult journeys but who decided that they had not come that far to only come that far! It's helpful for me to remember that I am on a journey with a destination! We have come so far and we have so much farther to go. So we're just going to keep finding joy in the journey.

We played phase 10, watched some pioneer movies, and I worked on our puzzle. We had two good lessons with our friend Rafael and he asked us how someone would join the church and so we explained the importance of baptism and invited him to be baptized on April 25! He said he'd think about it. And we got a text from our friend Jasmine who was going to be baptized on April 12 saying that she didn't think she was ready yet. That was kind of sad, but we had a good lesson with her last night and were able to talk more about God's love for us and how we can find strength. She's super sweet and I'm proud of her and hope she can find peace!

April 10th Day of Fasting Infographic

I have been thinking a lot these last few days of how mindful God is of us. On Saturday I was having a Rough Time and right after the evening session of general conference our zone leaders showed up on our porch with a whole pan of nanaimo bars. So I kind of unloaded on them. (In our defense, we'd been inside for THREE DAYS STRAIGHT).  They were super sweet about it and they came JUST at the right time. And then the next day they showed up with some mail and asked me if I wanted a priesthood blessing. I was in isolation so I wasn't sure if that was allowed but I called the mission president and he said that I could go to the church if I wanted a blessing. For my friends not of my faith, when you get a blessing a priesthood holder puts his hands on your head and speaks the words that God gives him. You can get different kinds of blessings, but this one was a blessing of comfort and counsel. And in my blessing, the elders told me that I would be able to see God's love for me as I read the scriptures (and I was like oh yeah, okay, I already knew that, I'm doing everything I need to be) and then they said that I would ALSO be able to see evidence of God's love if I took time to look around me. And all of a sudden, I remembered so many times in the last few days when people had showed up and reached out and said just the right things at the moment when I needed it! For example, during the Saturday Evening Session of general conference (side note: 4 women speakers! that's a record!), I was struggling and then at the end of his talk, President Eyring said "The Lord has a plan for your service." And I felt like he was looking me straight in the eyes and talking right to me! There are messages from God all around. We just have to look for them!

Medicine Hat Missionaries taken before isolation

And on that note: Doctrine & Covenants 64:33 says "Wherefore, be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great." I am trying so hard to not be weary in well-doing and trust that the Lord can take my small efforts and make great things. I am so excited to see miracles this week!

I hope you are all well! Happy Easter! #Heisrisen!

Love,

Sister Willis

President Nelson has invited us to join in a worldwide day of prayer and fasting for relief from covid-19 on April 10, Good Friday. If you're interested in uniting your faith with ours, check out the infographic!

Week 40: OOHHH WE'RE HALFWAY THERE!

Manna (Brownies) from Heaven!

On Thursday I hit my 9 month mark, which means -- HALFWAY! And we are DEFINITELY living on a prayer. Everybody always talks about having a mid-mission crisis. Apparently mine is covid-19. We aren't confined to our apartments (yet) but the missionaries in Calgary are so we're pretty sure we know what's coming. Luckily general conference is this weekend! There's no better time to be trapped inside your apartment than for general conference. And there's no better time to hear the words of the prophets than in the middle of a pandemic! 

Last Thursday we had transfers, so we took a quick road trip to Lethbridge, which is about two hours east of Medicine Hat. Everything was mostly alright except for 11 areas in the mission closing due to the fact that we lost all of the elders who had been out for 21 months AND no new missionaries could come in from the MTC in Provo. But then, on Friday, we had -- TRANSFERS PART 2! We found out that all of the international missionaries were being sent home, quarantined for 14 days, and reassigned to missions in their home countries. Luckily the US of A is not quite international enough for the Church to start chartering us planes home. We lost a few dozen more missionaries, but some of them can't even go home because the borders of their home countries are closed! Things change every day, and every day missionaries get moved around. But I'm still here! Partying it up!

We haven't been able to go into people's homes for a couple of weeks now, but luckily the members of the Medicine Hat 5th ward are literal ANGELS sent directly from the presence of God to feed my companion and I a ridiculous amount of sugar. On Thursday morning, our relief society president hung a bag on our door with a puzzle and a roll of frozen cookie dough; on Saturday, a member dropped off TWO PANS of frosted double-chocolate brownies (one gluten and dairy-free, for Sister Bueno, and one full of butter and flour, for me); the stake president's wife gave us dinner on Monday and included a 5-pound bag of sour gummy dinosaurs (dino-sours, they're called) and homemade chocolate chip cookies; and last night our doorbell rang at 8:00! It was (if you can guess!) a sweet member of our ward walking her dog in the snowstorm. She gave us some kit-kats and mike & ikes and told us to stay safe. Basically, if I get sent home because of the coronavirus, don't be surprised if I'm looking a little chunkier.

Yesterday we were supposed to have MLC (mission leadership council: a big meeting with all of the zone leaders and sister training leaders in the mission) in Calgary, but CLEARLY that was NOT going to happen. So instead we had a big zoom call! So many of the missionaries have gone home since the end of February, when we had our last meeting, that it was kind of crazy to see all of the new people! But life goes on. And we thank heaven for technology! We've been able to have so many lessons with members and people we're teaching through hangouts and zoom and messenger and google duo even though we can't meet with people in person! For the longest time, everybody would always talk about how God prepared this technology to hasten His work and I didn't really buy into it. I thought it was great that we COULD use technology to do family history work and share the gospel, but there was no way that could be its primary purpose. And look where we are now! Thanks to the devices we have in our hands and the years of experience that we've had with social media, we're going as strong as ever! President Keung even started posting on Facebook! Which is a miracle all of its own!

At the end of last week, the zone leaders had a little bit of a rocky relationship with some of the companionships in our zone, so they decided to take a page out of the Relief Society book and offer up some baked goods. We tried to teach them how to make cake mix cookies but instead of following the recipes we sent them they just followed the recipe on the cake box, so they made a bunch of mini cakes. Which is exactly what you'd expect from two 20-year-old boys. They called us, very concerned about their cake-cookies, and then decided that they would still be an acceptable apology offering if they were frosted. But they didn't have stuff to make frosting. So Sister Willis got to make chocolate frosting for the zone leaders, who showed up to our apartment with the cookie-cakes ("they taste like clouds!" they said), and we all stood in the doorway frosting the treats. I think the missionaries forgave them, so it might have been worth it.

This morning I read Doctrine and Covenants 128:22, which is taken from a letter written by Joseph Smith and says, "Brethren, shall we not go on in so great a cause? Go forward and not backward. Courage, brethren; and on, on to the victory! Let your hearts rejoice, and be exceedingly glad." I am so immensely grateful to be part of so great a cause! And it is powerful to me to recognize that where most of the world has shut down, we are still working hard and going strong! In this battle we're fighting we already know who wins! And so we're still girding up our loins and getting to work. It's a HAPPY time to be a disciple of Christ! And it is SUCH a happy time to be a missionary!

I love you! Take a little extra effort to be a missionary today!

💙💙💙

Sister Willis

Week 39: Things Fall Apart

The title of this email is also the title of a book they made us read about colonialism in Africa when I was in 7th grade (or, as they would say here, "grade 7"). This email will probably be more entertaining than the book but that's just my modest opinion.

We are "working from our apartments". But they never really told us that. They just slowly took away all of our other tools until the only reason we could leave our apartment was to go on walks! We go on LOTS of walks. It ends up being okay because lots of other people are also on walks, so we can talk to them as long as we stay 6 feet away! #socialdistancing! We are BLESSED because our members are still bringing us food and literally an HOUR before we got the email on Thursday saying we can't go into people's homes we got a text from a lady in our ward asking if we wanted a STACK of church movies. Of course we said yes! Tender mercies!

We've been doing our very best to adapt to "working from our apartments". We've been doing lots of lessons over video call and a few over phone call, which is a little harder because you can't see anyone's face! Our friend Jasmine got tonsillitis and she couldn't talk, so we recorded some videos of us teaching principles and sent them to her! We love technology!

We're still allowed to volunteer in the community, so we've been building food hampers at the food bank. Over the weekend they got super concerned about social distancing, so we brought all the food and boxes outside and had to stay 6 feet away from each other. We tossed a lot of food. It was an experience for sure. But they're so nice to us! They always tell us that when we come there's nothing done and by the time we leave there's a stack of hampers! I told them it's because we're miracle workers but I'm not sure they believe me 😋.

We were supposed to be going to members' homes to take the sacrament on Sunday but then we weren't supposed to go to members' homes at all so we got to have missionary sacrament meeting! It was actually amazing to be able to first of all, take the sacrament because we haven't been able to for four weeks, and also to hear all of the missionaries' testimonies! It was probably one of the most spiritual sacrament meetings I've ever been in. The elders and sisters I serve with are all such great examples to me of faith and devotion, ESPECIALLY in our constantly changing circumstances. They give me motivation to keep going! We're not supposed to use the chapel for anything other than sacrament meeting, but missionaries are really good at devising ways around rules like that so we backed all of our cars up to each other and sat in our trunks and had a picnic! It was a good time before all gatherings were like, banned forever!

And that brings us about up to date! I'm on the verge of insanity and my new pastime is playing Mexican Train dominoes! Which is kind of upsetting. But we're going to make it through! One of the sisters in Medicine Hat is going home today, so we've been partying it up in a trio for the last 36 hours. It's been helping a little bit with my insanity.

2 Timothy 1:7 says, "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." I know it's easier to talk the talk than walk the walk but in times like these I am grateful for the spirit of power and love and a sound mind! It's been amazing to see the community I live in and the missionaries I serve with come together and find strength in God to overcome this obstacle. I hope that everyone is healthy and safe and finding things to do at home!

I love you all!

Sister Willis

Week 38: Doomsday

TP our members hid for us on our doorstep!

I know that this is SUPER ORIGINAL and nobody has heard yet but it's literally the end of the world! We're not quarantined (yet) but we can't go tracting anymore, church is cancelled, and nobody wants to leave their houses! And the elders who are at 21 months are getting shipped home next week! Our mission president's wife sent us an email telling us to stock up on nonperishables so we went to the store on Saturday morning and I saw more empty shelves than I've ever seen in my entire life! There were zero rolls of toilet paper. Zero. And now I have lots of chef boyardee just in case of emergency!

But, life goes on!! On Saturday night, we were able to see our friend Josh get baptized! With all of the changes, we had to reorganize the whole thing pretty last minute, but everything turned out okay. He's the sweetest and I'm so excited for him! I love that kid!

Exchanges.

On Friday we had exchanges with the sister APs up in Calgary, so we got to take a nice road trip on Thursday night! All week it had been like, pretty warm, but winter came back in like 3 hours, so the summer clothes that I packed were not sufficient for the -26 degree weather that we were facing! They lent me lots of coats and scarves and hats, though, so I ended up being okay. The bigger issue was that tracting was banned, so we were only allowed to street contact (street contacting has since been banned), and nobody wanted to be outside with the snow and the coronavirus! We spent a lot of time in the heated church building trying to figure out what we were going to do about church on Sunday.

Which leads us to... church on Sunday! We hung out with lots of members and I did more Come, Follow Me than I've done in a long time. It was probably good for me! Except we went to one member's house and I heard their HUGE dog barrelling down the stairs and before I could do anything to protect myself, he was peeing on my coat!! It was not ideal. But it was okay. The member washed it for me and now it smells like laundry detergent!

Because nobody wants human contact, we've been having kind of a hard time getting appointments and the food bank has been having kind of a hard time getting volunteers! So we were able to solve each other's problems! We have been doing a lot of bagging food at the food bank and because people can't come in to pick up their orders anymore, yesterday we got to deliver people's food orders to their houses! It's basically the same as missionary work! King Benjamin said that when you're in the service of your fellow beings, you're only in the service of your God :)

John 16:33 says, "These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." I'm so grateful that we because of the gospel we can have peace despite our circumstances. Knowing that all of this is part of a bigger plan has helped me so much! There's nothing better to be doing than sharing this message with other people :)

Love you all! Stay healthy!

Sister Willis

Week 37: I get invited to a Bible bash

Blizzards with the district on exchanges!

We went to Five Guys and decided to spread the
Good Word. (#findwhenyoueat,eatwhenyoufind)

On Friday we had a lesson with Randy #2 (if you remember Randy #2 from last week) and it turns out that he is NOT elect. We showed up and we'd invited his friend Jeff From Church and they both had their Bibles and notepads out and after we finished teaching our lesson they were ready for a Smackdown filled with Bible verses and anti stuff. They kept being like, "well in the Book of Mormon it says..." and I was like uhmmm I know you looked that up online because it actually doesn't say that in the Book of Mormon AND I'm 19 and you invited me over to your house just to yell at me! So! And a couple of days later we tracted into another guy who wanted to bash with us. It's too cold for this!!

The biggest news of this week is about our friend Randy #1!! We were finally able to have a lesson with him and he asked us about what it means to be worthy to be baptized and we talked about it with him and invited him to be baptized! He said he didn't think that he was worthy of something like that and that he felt like God wouldn't want him back, so we told him the story of the prodigal son and testified of God's unfailing love for us - and he's on date! I'm so, so excited for him.

One of the sisters in our district was sick, so Sister Bueno and I went on emergency exchanges with them last weekend. So on Saturday I spent lots of hours inside studying! I became super enlightened and maybe took a quick nap to get ready for daylight savings. Which WRECKED me just a few short hours later (and also wrecked most of the people we invited to church, haha). 

We're still working with our friend Rafael, and he has LOTS of questions. Lots. We taught him the ten commandments and it took a WHOLE HOUR. He came to stake conference on Saturday night and our stake president and the visiting general authority spent an hour answering his questions after the meeting, and THEN he came to dinner with us and our members on Sunday night and they spent two hours answering more questions! Very inquisitive. But we love questions! Questions are how we get answers! Questions are good!

We had zone conference on Monday and all physical contact besides bumping elbows is BANNED because of coronavirus! Sister Keung was DISTRAUGHT. President gave us all elbow bumps and Sister Keung gave us all a virtual hug. Most of the missionaries hugged anyway, so if you here of a corona outbreak in southern Alberta, you know why!

We went on exchanges this week and I got to spend, like, 40 hours with my FAVE Sister Macdonald! We came out together and she's so loving and kind and I learned so much from her! Fun times!

I hope everybody stays safe and healthy this week! Don't forget to prepare for general conference! Love ya!

Sister Willis

Week 36: On miracles, potatoes with chocolate, and broken-down bikes

We eat Lucky Charms because we think they make us lucky. We think.

Happy Wednesday everybody! This week was AWESOME and we saw so many miracles! But first - the snow is starting to melt! It is positive degrees and I can SEE GRASS! Which is honestly a miracle all on its own. I didn't really think that I'd ever see the sun again.

Due to the fact that (1) it's starting to warm up outside and (2) our kilometers are severely limited by the fact that this month we have to drive to Taber, Brooks, Lethbridge twice, and Calgary twice (not that I expect anyone to know where any of those places are!), we decided to bust out our bikes yesterday! This was a whole production because you can't raise or lower the seats on any of the bikes, they all have one functional and one broken brake, and the tires are... a little sketchy from being outside in -40 degrees. We biked a lot in my first area, but I forgot how much slower it is than driving! We went to do one stop-by and not only did it take, like, 40 minutes, AND it was warm out so I was sweating in my coat, but I was DEAD for the rest of the day, haha. We had a meeting with our stake president and the zone leaders that night and I was doing my very very best not to fall asleep. It was moderately successful. 

Exchanges with Sis. Barker in The Middle of Nowhere, Alberta

We have had a crazy week filled with miracles! Like, every single day has been filled with miracles. But we'll start on Friday around 4 pm, because that's when things really started to pick up. Sister Bueno and I were on exchanges and I was up in Brooks, which is an hour+ away, so we met in the middle on Friday afternoon and Sister Bueno and I drove back to Medicine Hat. We were supposed to have an appointment but it fell through (like our appointments have a tendency to do, haha), so we went home and had comp study instead. And we were both dead tired, like, struggling to keep our eyes open. So we decided that because we hadn't taken our full lunch break, we'd just take a quick nap and then head out and get to The Work. Which was an awesome decision. Because:

1. Our first stop was to drop of a children's Book of Mormon to this 10-year-old recent convert named Elizabeth. All of her siblings who live at home are baptized, but her mom works tons and so she's entirely evasive. But right as we pulled up to Elizabeth's house, we saw a lady walking into the house! It turned out to be Elizabeth's mom and we were able to teach her last night.
2. Because we were in the area, we decided to stop by our investigator Randy (#1). We had planned to go by later that night, but he was home at 4:30 and told us he was leaving in half an hour for BC for the whole weekend. He sent us a text that night saying that we always come over at the hardest times and he thinks it's a sign that the Lord Jesus is watching out for him. It is!
3. We found out that there was a nonmember at church on Sunday (even though nobody told us at church?!?). He's a 17-year-old boy living with his friend's mom, who is a member. We stopped by and he told us he loved church because everybody was so welcoming and that he'd tried to steal The Book of Mormon from his friend's mom, so we gave him his own copy and set up a time to come back and teach him more!
4. That night, we were tracting and we hadn't found anyone yet but had a few minutes before our lesson at 8. So Sister Bueno and I prayed and both looked at the map, and she mentioned a street that I had JUST been looking at, so we were like, GO! GO! We HAULED over there and decided to start at the end of the street and we knocked on the first door and the guy was nice but not interested and at the SECOND DOOR we found this nice dad to whom we gave a copy of the Book of Mormon! His family is out of town but we're going to teach them all on Sunday! It was awesome.

And then we had some pretty cool bonus miracles on Monday! We had our second lesson with our friend Jasmine (who actually doesn't live in our ward but wants to be taught by sisters) and we went over the restoration. She has been SO prepared and I think she recognizes that God has been leading her to the gospel! We invited her to be baptized on April 11 and she said she needed some time to think about it, but she texted us that night and asked if we could do a different day so that her boyfriend would be in town! She's getting baptized on April 12 and we're SO excited for her! She's absolutely the sweetest. 

Later that evening we were tracting and we only had a few minutes (which seems to be a pattern with us, haha) and we didn't feel like we were in the right spot so we pulled up our map and headed to a different area. Long story short, we were going around the bend on the street we'd picked and Sister Bueno was like, "stop the car!" So we got out and she was like, let's do these three houses, it's one of these three, and pointed to three different houses on different parts of the street. The third house was this dad named Randy (Randy #2!!!!) who took a Book of Mormon and said he's always been interested in learning more about the Church! And he was wearing a new creature in Christ shirt and had the picture of Jesus holding the lamb on his wall. So we're pretty sure he's elect. 

That night, we had a lesson with our friend Rafael who is ALSO super prepared for the gospel. He showed up to church all by himself last week and we had our third lesson with him on Monday and invited him to be baptized! He said he wanted to pray about it, but he also said that he likes how our church feels different from any other church and he feels safe and at home here. It was awesome. 

We had dinner with this family in our ward and they made potatoes as part of dinner and then for dessert we had granola squares with a chocolate peanut butter sauce on top. One minute we were having a pleasant conversation, and the next we were eating potatoes with chocolate peanut butter sauce and hot sauce on them. It was disgusting. Not my favorite dinner, haha

This week I read 2 Corinthians 12:9, which says "And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me." It's super interesting to me that Paul sees his weaknesses as an opportunity to draw closer to Christ and draw on His power rather than as setbacks or personal failures. One of the most hopeful things that we get to teach is that the grace and love and power of Jesus Christ are big enough for ALL of us, no matter what mistakes we may have made. There have been so many times on my mission when I've felt like my skill set is insufficient for the tasks at hand, but I've learned over time that I am not asked to serve alone. I'm so grateful for the fact that God is always so willing to help!

I hope everybody is having a great weak, staying healthy, and saying their prayers! Happy March!

Love,

Sister Willis