Sorry I Sent It Before Writing It
you guys were getting too comfortable with me sending emails on Wednesday i had to switch it up on ya. Keep you on your toes! Just kidding preparation day is thursday this week cause transfers! Also sorry I started making an email and accidentally sent it before I actually wrote it....
Also if you want more behind the scenes fotos click the link
happy día de los muertos! It's so cool to see and hear about everyone's traditions here
This week was bomb! Marcos was baptized! There was a few mishaps but it was so good and he is so happy and full of joy! And we put our friend Brian on date
Celebrated my birthday! 20 years old, ill probably have a crisis over it later
My birthday was SO fun! I felt so special and so loved! Thank you everyone for all the birthday wishes! It meant to world to me! We decorated the apartment, biked a lot, carved pumpkins, had cupcakes, got to talk to my fam, taught the good word, ya know just the best things ever! These people are SO amazing!! We had to be inside our apartment at 6 on Halloween/my birthday so the next night the members threw me a surprise party! It was so sweet and i thought i was gonna cry it was so fun and adorable! I felt so loved and cared for! Theyre so giving and caring. I got some epic presents too. One elder gave me a Catholic Prayer candle with Jesus on it and a frame with only a stock photo? and these other Elders created a cinematic master piece (included in my google photos album) im pretty sure its the best thing ive ever seen.
Also our sweet old lady friend Maria told us she thinks my spanish is getting better (and I didn't even pay her to say that!)
We had to say goodbye to hermana Barton cause she finished her mission and is headed home. Which was so sad. We had a giant sleepover the last night and brought our mattresses in their room then dropped her off at the mission home the next day. So now me, Hna Bagley, and Hna Darrington get to be a trio for a day which is rad. Transfers are crazy and everyone calls eachother the morning of at like 6:30 to find out where other people are going! We're all staying here in Simi and Bagley and I stay together! that's what we assumed would happen but I had like a gut sinking feeling all night and i dont know why! So glad nothing ended up happening cause I love my compy and Simi I'd be devastated to move so soon.
Thoughts
Sorry this part is really long but the BYU Devotionals are actually so good im probably gonna send like a list of ones you gotta listen to. This one is by Elder Holland called However Long and Hard the Road. This section was just so powerful to me
"On 10 May 1940, as the specter of Nazi infamy moved relentlessly toward the English Channel, Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was summoned to the post of prime minister of England. He hastily formed a government and on May 13 went before the House of Commons with his maiden speech
"We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land, and air, with all our might and with all our strength that God can give us. That is our policy. You ask, What is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory—victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror; victory, however long and hard the road may be.
We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."
As you wage such personal wars, obviously part of the strength to “hang in there” comes from some glimpse, however faint and fleeting, of what the victory can be. It is as true now as when Solomon said it that “where there is no vision, the people perish” If your eyes are always on your shoelaces, if all you can see is this class or that test, this date or that roommate, this disappointment or that dilemma, then it really is quite easy to throw in the towel and stop the fight.
But what if it is the fight of your life? Or more precisely if it is the fight for your life, your eternal life at that? What if beyond this class or that test, this date or that roommate, this disappointment or that dilemma, you really can see and can hope for all the best and right things that God has to offer? Oh, it may be blurred a bit by the perspiration running into your eyes, and in a really difficult fight one of the eyes might even be closing a bit, but faintly, dimly, and ever so far away you can see the object of it all. And you say it is worth it, you do want it, you will fight on. Like Coriantumr, you will lean upon your sword to rest a while, then rise to fight again."
A big example of this is Joseph Smith. He is being called into the battle of his life, for life itself, or at least for its real meaning and purpose. He will be driven and hunted and hounded. His enemies will rail and ridicule. He will see his children die and his land lost and his marriage tremble. He will languish in prison through a Missouri winter, and he will cry out toward the vault of heaven, “O God, where art thou? . . . How long. . . .O Lord, how long?” Finally he would walk the streets of his own city uncertain who, except for a precious few, were really friend or actually foe. And all that toil and trouble, pain and perspiration would end maliciously at Carthage—when there simply were finally more foes than friends. Felled by balls fired from the door of the jail inside and one coming through the window from outside, he fell dead into the hands of his murderers—thirty-eight years of age.
If all this and so much more was to face the Prophet in such a troubled lifetime, and if he finally knew what fate awaited him in Carthage, as he surely did, why didn’t he just quit somewhere along the way? Who needs it? Who needs the abuse and the persecution and the despair and death? It doesn’t sound fun to me, so why not just zip shut the cover of your Triple Combination, hand in your Articles of Faith cards, and go home?
Why not? For the simple reason that he had dreamed dreams and seen visions. Through the blood and the toil and the tears and the sweat, he had seen the redemption of Israel. It was out there somewhere—dimly, distantly—but it was there. So he kept his shoulder to the wheel until God said his work was finished.
Or what of the other Saints? What were they to do with a martyred Prophet, a persecuted past, and now hopeless future? With Joseph and Hyrum gone, shouldn’t they just quietly slip away also—somewhere, anywhere? What is the use? They have run and run and run. They have wept and buried their dead. They have started over so many times their hands are bloodied and their hearts are bruised. In the name of sanity and safety and peace, why don’t they just quit?
Well, it was those recurring dreams, and compelling visions. It was spiritual strength. It was the fulfillment they knew to be ahead, no matter how faint or far away. These Saints also vowed victory, however long and hard the road."
I love you all so much thank you for thinking of me! I hope you know how much you mean to me! Have a fantastic week! Talk l8er losers
Woohoo! First transfer: done!
Hermana Buhrley
Pics
Marcos Baptism!
Pumpkin carving
Security
District pic
Last pics with H. Barton
Birthday stuff
Bagley and I at the bottom of the BIGGEST hill (it doesnt look that big on camera but pls just trust me)
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