Virginia Is For Lovers {Of The Lord}: Letter #7 10/18/14

All the lovely humans I was blessed to encounter in a classroom setting here. Members of my district and our teachers. (Also cute CCM gold statue dude fitting right in)

Week 6 has come and gone and I am officially deucing out of the CCM in T minus ONE day.. AHHHH. What is my life. Today was quite easily the hardest day of ever, probably. I thought I had thoroughly prepared myself for the never ending goodbyes a mission brings, what with Oakcrest this summer and all that jazz but, NO. Holy smokes, there's just something about the people you feel the spirit, learn and grow with. The people that strengthen your testimony and help you become a representative of Christ. Over the course of this week, I have oft times felt a wee bit angry for the fact that Heavenly Father gave me all of these BEAUTIFUL humans, helped me to feel more love than I ever have before, and then makes me leave them. It's just not fair, ya know? And today was the icing on the cake, obvs, saying goodbye for reals. I was really struggling with it when it came to head to the ELDER NEIL L. ANDERSEN devotional, and I was really not super excited. Like I would have traded meeting an apostle to have one more day in class in the CCM. Moment of weakness, but it was real. As we were waiting for him to arrive, I was searching El Libro de Mormon, when I came across the most beautiful thing of all time! Alma 26 has long been one of my all time favorite chapters of scripture in existence, and I really felt like I should read it today. Ammon opens the chapter talking to his bretheren about the great reason they have to rejoice, because would they ever have thought when they left their homes that God would have granted them such wonderful blessings. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'd spent my whole day being sick to my stomach with sadness over the fact that I was leaving all these beautiful people that I love in Mexico, when I should have been REJOICING! I never, ever could have imagined the beautiful blessings I have recieved here. I have had the opportunity to meet some of the most wonderful people to live on this earth, to love them, to learn from them and I AM SO SO GRATEFUL. Ah.

Eating contraband tacos because #yoCCMo #youonlyCCMonce (BTW they were easily the best thing I ever ate and street tacos are wonderful and my stomachs feeling iffy today, but it's all worth it)

Anyways, this week was the craziest whirlwind of all emotions, if the first paragraph didn't clue you in. Wednesday was THE rollercoaster day of the world. First, I was struggling way super bad just feeling like a terrible missionary. This happens sometimes when Satan doesn't really want you to be doing what you're doing. SO I was basically just feeling that because I wasn't perfectly obedient, and that kept messing up and falling short, the Lord wouldn't trust me to be his servant. I dunno, one of those weird feelings. Hmo Vargas came up to us in class and told us that we would be teaching Alejandro after class, and that it was okay that we hadn't planned because it was going to be a bit different and we should just follow the spirit. So we went outside, I just prayed to feel better because I knew I couldn't teach the way I was feeling, and we went in. Alejandro started to tell us all about how he didn't feel like he could continue taking the lessons because he just couldn't do everything he knew he should and how it was just too hard and basically dropping us. I began to bear my testimony of how the Lord will NEVER leave us comfortless, and that He understands our weaknesses, and.. I realized the words coming from my mouth were the answers to all of my prayers. Let me just say, the spirit was crazy strong and there was many a wet eye in that room. It was incredible to be led by the spirit, and to feel the love my Padre Celestial and Jesucristo have for me through that spirit. Ah, I can't even describe it. We then kneeled to pray at the end of the lesson, and we asked Alejandro to pray. For the duration of the prayer, I was just PLEADING for Alejandro to feel the love and comfort of the Savior, and after we left Hmo. V came and talked to us about it. He particularly mentioned that during the prayer, he recieved many an answer to his prayers and felt the spirit so much. HEAVENLY FATHER ANSWERS US! HE CARES! He cares enough about Hermano Vargas to answer his prayers through the fake lesson to his investigator role through us. This work is incredible.

SO after this, I just cried and cried all the way to the comedor. It was magical. Thennnnnn.. I dunno, some things happened and I got way down in the dumps again. Yikes, bikes. The ups and downs are unreal. After dinner, we were walking and I could tell something was wrong with Hermana Flitton. So we had a little chat, and all four of us girls proceeded to break down in a beautiful/terrified/joyous/grateful/crazy fit of something that only the CCM can do to you. It was awesome though. The spirit spoke so much to us about how we ARE qualified to do this work, that Heavenly Father cares, that we were MEANT to be here at the CCM together at this time, I dunno. It was really a beautiful thing for the whole experience to come full circle. I now know for a surety that Hma Flitton and I were made companions for a reason and that Heavenly Father knows me personally. It ruled. Then, Hma Flitton proceeded to get a blessing from Elder Peterson (our district leader) and all of our cute boys stood in the circle. It was really the happiest thing ever and all of her struggles were mentioned and my testimony of the priesthood has grown 10,000 x out here. Heavenly Father sure knows what he's doing.

The beloved Hermano Vargas. I cried like a baby leaving this human today. He has changed my life in so many ways and has literally been the best teacher I've ever had in my entire existence.

Now we can chat about the Neil L. Andersen devotional.. So great, SO great! I can't even tell ya, it ruled. Remember last week how I made a big fit about how we had to practice the shaking hands procedure beforehand and what not? Well the day finally arrived, and we all got in there and seated all nice. I also previously mentioned that we had to wait for him to arrive, right? SO they were under the impression that he would arrive any moment, so we sang the opening hymn of Secret Prayer, or whatever that song is called in english, and he still hadn't arrived.. so we sang the 4th verse again.. still didn't come.. so we sang the 3rd and 4th verse again.. still hadn't arrived.. so we repeated that once more, and then they had us begin the song over. All for the sake of looking all natural like we were just singing, doing our thing when he entered the auditorium. It was the worst thing that ever happened and Hermana Meacham and I couldn't even control our undying laughter. Yiiiiikes. Hahah, but it was supes awesome. Elder Andersen is quite literally THE most sarcastic general authority that ever lived.. I couldn't even handle. SO funny. He made a comment about Elder Packer having one foot in this world and one foot in the spirit world that gave us all a good laugh. He talked about the atonement and it's importance in ALL aspects of life but focused on missionary work for obvious reasons. It RULED. I'm so grateful to know that we're all a work in process and how one day, we will be the perfect friend, the perfect child, the perfect human, as Christ like as possible. I'm stoked for it!

THE Hermano Silva. This is our beyonce "flawless" pic, idk. Call it what you want. :)

Next time we chat, I will be a real life missionary en EL CAMPO. Aye aye aye, guys. I love the CCM SO much and could easily spend my entire mission here. BUT I have this message in my heart that i've gotta share with real humans because I know it'll help them! There's hope, people. I'm so grateful to have come here and be speaking spanish and to have fallen in love with the Mexican people. I know there's a reason I didn't get called to France, or Portland. I need Richmond, and Richmond needs me. I'm comin' for ya, land of the trees! <3