Friday, May 6, 2016

Bittersweet Moments

Something Good: Well this week has been sad, and happy for two reasons. Sad because a few of our gators left this week, since it is now summer semester...and who wants to do school during the summer!?! Not me. ;) Jose..man that one was probably the hardest person to say bye too. We had one last lesson with him and funny enough it was on "Enduring to the end." But we switched it up to, "Enjoy to the end." He loved that. It was cool, earlier that week we had a lesson of just us asking him questions to see from what we have taught him, what he knows and doesn't, and he knew so much. Ah, man. Jose. He is just wonderful. His faith has grown from a little seed to a tree in ways that are amazing. He told us he would continue living the Gospel and go to church. We are planning to get missionaries to him asap! I am so thankful for Jose for teaching me how to teach with love. He definitely has changed my point of view of loving and pushing forward. I will always be grateful for Jose! Also, he told me we could be friends forever, so that made me irrationally happy. :)
Some other good things! I went on an exchange with my STL, Sister Haught! She is wonderful, we had such a good day together! We taught this girl named Hannah, who recently had a dear friend pass away, we taught the Plan of Salvation and it was SO powerful. I feel like that has probably been one of the Best Plan of Salvation lessons I have participated in. So thankful for the time I had to do that! We had one last lesson with Keegan, and that was sad too, but FH makes me happy and I am so thankful for the opportunity to have learned FH with him. He is a cool cat.
So one of our RC's (recent converts), Derek, oh Derek, I wish everyone could meet Derek. He is so funny and so awesome. Last lesson, when we took this photo, he said..."I am going to stare at the camera with a stone face." ha! He is leaving for the summer too, so I asked him to write in my exit journal and it took him 20 mins to write in it because he didn't know what to say hahaha! Later I read it and he told me some nice things/funny things and then at the end he says.."Well the spirit told me, to end this note" haha. Oh I just adore him. Overall, this week has been up and down, but on the good side, this week has shown me how much I love the people we worked with. Who knew you could love people so much. It usually is us leaving them, but this time it is them leaving us which is hard. But again I am so happy to have helped them - hopefully. ;)
Oh also, something good, Sister Beal and I built a fort to sleep in and it turned out so awesome, but in the middle of the night it fell on us and we both just laughed a bit and went back to sleep. Companion Unity! Also, when you are "besties" with your comp, mission life is just so dang fun. ;) A Tender Mercy: So! This tender mercy has to do with Jose! So finals were this week and Jose stress a lot about school and grades...he wants to go to Berkeley...so his grades do matter a lot. Well he had a test this week, and on one of them he completely forgot what he had studied...so he was freaking out. But then he remembered he could pray! So he told us he took a minute and prayed for help, and he sat there and everything he had studied came back to him! Guys! He saw a blessing!! We were just so happy for him. Prayer does work and it was so cool to see Jose see that too! We were so proud of him. :) I just know that there really is power in prayer! We can never pray too much. In fact, we should always be praying. :)
So today, P-Day I cut hair for the Elders again. The tall Elder is Elder Johnson and the other is Elder Jones. I am happy to give this service. And speaking of our District....
... so at Florida State University there is a "Hooligan" brand, and as FSU missionaries we decided to get them, cause hello, we are all hooligans! This is before Elder Johnson's haircut (please compare photos...) He is the tall one in both photos.
Something Learned: So this photo shows that I have walked a LOT in my shoes - they are totally worn out! And what I have learned is - No effort is wasted! That is a line from PMG, and y'all it is true. No effort is wasted if what we give is to the Lord. The service, the love, our actions, our words, our thoughts, if they are all given to the Savior or our Heavenly Father than life is good, and we won't have to worry about if we are doing enough or too little, I have seen this, the past few days with being sick and all (too much heat and sun - is is seriously summer here). First of all, I hate not doing something, so it is hard for me to rest so I can get better. But then I remember I am doing my best with the abilities that I have. And sometimes we just have to take a minute to step back and reflect on the good things we have done, and if we are living the Gospel faithfully, we are doing enough and that makes me happy! Man, life is just happy. It is our choice to either be happy or not, and I feel like being happy is a whole lot better way to go. :)
Oh! And one last tender mercy! We got to USE a car today...we never have a car, so we were happy! Air conditioning in Florida in the Summer - a small life-saver!!! Thank y'all for your love and support, prayers and thoughts, I truly am so thankful. Y'all make my heart full. <3 Have a good week! Remember...You Are Loved. Sis Nels :)

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