Grand Missionary Adventures: December 3, 2012 Letter

Hey there ya'll!!

Mosiah 2:41 apparently is not enough to reinforce the idea that we are blessed spiritually AND temporally when we obey the commandments. All of our poor Chinese investigators are the type that when the going gets tough, especially academically, they forget everything about church. AHHHHH!!! I feel like a parent lamenting a child's poor decisions. Obviously I can't take away their agency, but it hurts to see them just throw away the blessings they could receive if they were just coming to church and keeping their commitments.

This is especially on my mind because we had a really powerful lesson with Shanshan this week. We spent an entire lesson just talking about the first commandment in the 10 commandments - Thou shalt have no other Gods before me. We talked about how we can relate that to how we prioritize our time and our efforts. She understood. She committed to come to church even if it was hard, and then on Saturday night we got a text saying that she had some project thing to do on Sunday...ugh!

I feel good knowing that we did our part, but it still just makes me sad :(

This week has been kinda slow actually. Sis. Khaled, the poor thing, has been out a lot of the week. Just feeling lots of abdominal pain. We think we may be on the right track now and have yet another doctors appointment today. If it's what we think it is, she could likely have a surgery this week to get her sorted out and she'll be back on her feet in no time at all. The Packard's have been super supportive and sweet. We couldn't make it to church yesterday morning - her pain plus the cold plus the 5:30 wake up didn't really work well together so Sister Packard came and picked us up and we went to their ward - Weston 2nd (were Bishop Ainge presides :). It was a great experience - it was so much fun to be in a family ward! Everyone got so excited to see sisters there - we kept having to tell everyone that we weren't permanent. Sis. Khaled got a chance to talk to someone who has a lot of experience with what the doctors think might be her problem. We also got to talk to all the Young Women about what it's like to be a missionary. So fun!! Sis. Khaled's true colors showed through - she LOVES the Young Women. She was the YW president in her branch before she got her mission call.

Then we got to enjoy an afternoon with the Packards. President Packard had a fairly low-key day as his days go and so he made us all some good ole' fashioned gumbo that was delicious!! It was my first Gumbo experience was definitely a success. We had to try to get a hold of Sis. Khaled's family to tell them about her medical adventures. After an hour of trying every way we knew how to call Portugal we decided to Skype so I got to see her mom and her little brother - at 11:30 their time :) Poor dears! It was super fun to hear them chatting away in Portuguese. I understand a lot more now than I did a couple months ago.

Anyway, that's really all there is to report on this week. I love you all a LOT!! Thanks for all the support and I hope to hear from you all soon.

Love,
Sister Katie