Fast Weight Loss

Familia!

Promise I'm not advertising any sort of weight-loss plan. In fact, I would never want this to happen to anyone. We had dinner with... someone... this week and got terribly sick and were up all night and in bed (except for at the toilet) the next day. It was a disaster! We had food poisoning I guess and were vomiting a lot. I kept thinking about how lazy I felt being in bed but then the thought came into my head, "Sweetheart. This is Heavenly Father telling you it's okay to take a rest." Somehow we managed to make it to church the next day. It was funny to me that the first thing my district leader asked was who we had at church. Ah well--I don't think he realized how much we were dying and still weak from the previous day's happenings. But we're better now! I've been eating jello and toast and we each had a taco today. Oh, I had a donut last night on our member missionary exchanges.

President Lewis is back in the mission! He was gone for 28 days in the hospitals in Sacramento and Salt Lake (2 surgeries). He wrote this, which I really appreciated. Elder Orson F. Whitney wrote: “No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted.  It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude, and humility…. It is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation that we gain the education that we come here to acquire.”  While some experiences in life are not pleasant to endure, they are a part of our Heavenly Father’s  great plan of happiness.

On Thursday we're going to an inter-mission conference in the Roseville Mission to see Elder L. Tom Perry and Elder (President?) Maynes from the Presidency of the First Quorum of the Seventy--that is, if we can find a ride! We're at the very southern end of our mission and the Roseville Mission is north of our mission, so hopefully someone will be very generous and be willing to take us.

We have a promising investigator right now. I may have told you about her last week. Her name is E and she heard about the Church from her friend at work who is a recent convert in the English ward. She's been to church twice but not to our ward! But we've been the ones teaching her because she understands Spanish better. I think I have told you about her. Well she is a little dream come true and already believes and follows a lot of the things we do. The only thing that could be a deterrent is that her work schedule is so crazy and doesn't permit us to visit her as much as we would like! And she can't always go to church on Sunday because she gets off work at 3:30 in the morning. I wish the adversary weren't so good with what he does.

I'm grateful to be here. I'm grateful for everything I've learned thus far. I'm grateful for the people I've met. I'm grateful for the eternal friendships I've made. I'm grateful for the struggles, the hard times, and for all your support and prayers. 

Love you all dearly.

And happy birthday to my very special mother. I love you so much. Thank you for everything, momma.

Love,

kates