Week 32 Baptisms, Birthdays, Service, and Warriors :)

Hola :)

This week has been a liiiiiittle bit nuts... like always. But we made it :)

First of all, D got baptized :) She is the sweetest little girl I have ever met. She LOVES praying. She says "Dear Heavenly Fahder" every time :'''''''') She was so so happy to be baptized. There was a major fiasco with the musical number involving a few missionaries having a really bad day but in the end, D got baptized, and she was happy :)

Also! This week we celebrated the birthday of one of our favorite sisters!!! She was in a trio with other favorite sisters :) Sadly, one of them had to get emergency transferred to another area because another sister had to go home for surgery :'''''''''''''''( So it was a little bit of a damper on the birthday celebrations but it all worked out :)

As a zone, we're making a big push for community service! There's a new website called JustServe.org and an app to go with it! Our zone is the guinea pigs for missionaries spending more day time hours serving the community instead of knocking on doors when appointments fall through. We did 113 hours of community service as a zone this week :D

Spiritual thought... I've been reading in Alma about Helaman and the 2,000 stripling warriors.

Most people grow up hearing the story of these great and valiant warriors who righteously defended their families. Well. I found something new I hadn't learned before! In Alma 56 you read about how they had this big old battle and "not one soul had of them had fallen to the earth!" MIRACLE! But, if you keep reading in Alma 57, there are 60 more stripling warriors that came to join their forces. 60 more who for whatever reason were not able to be part of that initial 2,000. And it is after these 60 soldiers join them that the battles get worse. But Helaman says "my little band of two thousand and sixty fought most desperately... yea and they did obey and observe to perform every word of command with exactness..." After the battle they find that "there was not one soul of them who did perish; yea, and neither was there one soul among them who had not received many wounds."

The 2,000 stripling warriors were preserved by the hand of God. The 2,060 stripling warriors were preserved by the hand of God, but they were all wounded.

I often feel like one of those 60 warriors. I hardly ever get it right the first time and when I finally get my act together I always get wounded, or have to learn things the hard way. But oh, what a blessing that is! To know that God doesn't forget about those 60. He is patient. He is loving. He is our father.

Helaman often refers to his stripling warriors as "my little sons" with such love and tenderness. Such tenderness and love I know Heavenly Father feels for us.

If you ever feel like one of the 60, don't forget it's never too late! The Lord will still work miracles in your lives!

Hope that kind of maybe made sense :)
I LOVE YOU ALL A LOT!!
Hermana Lund

Week 31 Priesthood Blessings

Hey everyone :)

This week I had a really special experience. Life out here is a little nuts :) so I've been debating getting a priesthood blessing for a while now. I went back and forth all last transfer and after praying
and some studying I decided to hold off. I'm a big believer in putting your best foot forward in faith rather than waiting around for a glorious sign from above. Anyways! So this week I got the prompting that I should actually get a priesthood blessing. Now. In everyone's testimony of the gospel there are key points of strength; points that you can rely on when your faith falters elsewhere. For example, I don't know if we really lived with God before we came to earth. That could be a struggle for me. But, I know that when I pray I feel good. And that good feeling is Gods love. And if God is our loving father, I suppose it makes sense that we lived with him before. Anyways. The
priesthood is a huge key point for me. I cannot deny the feelings I have felt as righteous priesthood power has been exercised in my life. So. I don't like to abuse or overuse the gift of receiving priesthood blessings. Keep it special, ya know? But finally I felt like it was time. Not because I was in complete turmoil in every part of my life, but because I felt ready and worthy to listen.

Finally, I got up the courage to call our district leader. This is our third transfer serving together so we've gotten really close. He is currently training a brand new missionary named elder brown :) As I
prayed to know if a priesthood blessing was the right step for me, the spirit was clear. Ask Elder Brown. Silly spirit, I met elder brown yesterday! But it was really clear. So I asked him :)

It was the first blessing he has ever given. It was short. It was sweet. It was genuine. And it was exactly what I needed. The could feel the few words he spoke were inspired and came directly from a
power who knew me much better than an elder that I met 2 days previously. It was amazing.

Other than that, life is good :) we've got another baptism this Friday :) she's 8 years old and got a little lisp and stutter. She is really the sweetest. It's amazing that little kids know and understand enough
to say "this is good. This is true. I'm in!" :)

Here's a picture of a cow we bonded with :) his name is Bessy. Yup. He. :)

Life is good. The church is true and that's all that really matters :)

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!

Ladies: Find righteous ways to use the priesthood in your life :)
Gentlemen: The priesthood matters. Stay worthy. You never know when
you'll have to use it :)

¡Hasta la próxima semana!
Hermana Lund

Enviado desde mi iPad

Week 30 Don't be all talk and no work. Get to work (T6)

Hey :)

Crazy last week of the transfer!!

Monday: we went to a member's house as a district and watched church movies in their home theater :))) fun stuff.

Tuesday: D got baptized :D after 15 years of waiting, her husband finally got to see her baptized! It was crazy and chaotic (as most surprise baptisms are) and honestly something I would rather not
repeat... But D got baptized :)

Thursday/Friday/Saturday: The annual county fair started on Thursday! We had this booth at the fair. It looked like relief society threw up and two beautiful tables popped out :) it was a lot of fun to talk to so many people and answer a lot of questions!

We also got transfer calls!! Annnnnnnnd... We're staying together :) woooohoooooooo.

We were finally able to go to the temple with our recent convert R :) we did baptisms. It was amazing.

This morning we had our Spanish temple day we've been planning for moooonths! The 7 Spanish branches in our temple district all came up! They opened up the temple just for us. We were able to do so much family history work! And we were able to do baptisms for the first time with D :)

Oh! And we went on a district hike this morning too :)

Crazy, amazing week! Full of miracles!

Sorry this email isn't as perky and profound as usual but I love you all :)

All I've got to say is put your money where your mouth is. 

Don't be all talk and no work. Get to work. The church is true :)

I love you all!
Hermana Lund

Weekly planning at its finest:

Week 29 Seven Months

HOLA :)

Here we go again :)

Welp. I turned 7 yesterday!!! Woohooooooo. So crazy. A lot can happen in 7 months :)

But can we talk aboout General Conference???????? HOW AMAZING WAS THAT?????? My goodness, I have never been so pumped up by listening to people talk for 10 hours! SO SO amazing!

I especially loved Larry Lawrence's talk. The one about praying to know what you need to change. Don't get me wrong, I love those talks that say "being christ-like is so important!" "have faith!" "be a happier person!" but I always end up saying... HOW? And so I loved that his talk had such a simple solution. PRAY. Ask God and he'll tell you the how. Stop stalling, humble up, and ask what you need to do differently.

Other than that, we went on exchanges this week with our Sister Training Leader, which are always just so nice and refreshing. We saw a lot of miracles.

The weeks/days are all blurring together.

Transfers are going down next Tuesday and transfer calls are on Saturday... It's kinda frustrating because literally ANYTHING could happen based on where Hna B and I are at soooo :) That'll be fun!

But!! Fun distracting things are happening this week... Including a surprise baptism :D I can't remember if I've told you this, but this lady is the only member of her family that hasn't been baptized and her husband has been waiting for this for 15 years!!! And, according to her request, she's just telling her family "oooooh, there's a baptismal service we should go to" and when they get there she's going to say "SURPRISE! It's mine!!!!" Hahah so... We're planning a surprise baptism :)

I'll keep it short and sweet this week :) Life is good :) Say your prayers :)

I love you all!
Hermana Lund