Called To Serve: Happy Mother's Day!!

May 2, 2016

My companion and me

This week has been a crazy one! I don't have super great stories this week. I feel like I didn't have a second to even think or to internalize anything! Time is flying by so fast. I did get peed on by a turtle though. That was gross. I saw 3 tarantulas this week. One of them literally the size of my hand and that's not exaggerating. We are going to the zoo today for p day and I'm afraid because animals hate me. We will see how many bite me! haha wish I was kidding.

Moving apartments

Riding in the back of a car

We had a few service projects too and a surprise trip to McAllen for an interview. Between those and moving apartments I am wiped! I feel like I am 90 years old.

Service project

Love these sisters- they are awesome

I think I slept in my own bed 2 nights this week. We had exchanges all week with the sisters. We had an exchange with the STLTs. I went to Edinburg with sister Hortal. That was fun. We went to this less actives house and got talking to her. She has had a really hard life. Her father was a drunk. When she was 6 she watched her dad kill her mom. Her dad would abuse them physically and sexually. After 5 years she moved in with her aunt who made her a prostitute. She was doing all kinds of drugs and you name it she lived through it all. It made me cry while she was telling us all of this. She has come back to church and she has just finished a book of her testimony of all the times she has seen God in her life. Even though she has been to Hell and back she still has more than a books' worth of writing of how she has seen God in her life. It makes my heart hurt and full at the same time. How many of us look at our trials and say, "God was there for me then and He helped me through it all. Every single step of the way." or do we say "Why has this happened to me? Why do bad things happen to good people?" Don't we know that God is aware of everything? Through trials, weak things can be made strong. Have we been changed by Grace? That lady has no idea how much I have thought about her this week. We never know whose lives we are impacting even through our hardest times. That woman taught Sister Hortal and I through her trials and weaknesses because she applied Grace into her life. To change takes practice. It is to suffer. To sacrifice. To learn. To apply. They don't call it long suffering for nothing. She could have easily blamed God for her trials. She could have given up. She could still be doing drugs and blaming her father. She decided to use the Atonement to not only be cleansed but to be changed!

I know that Grace is the presence of God's power. To help lift us up in even the hardest of times so that we too can become like Him.