Letter #31 04/20/15

This week, this WEEK. (Sung to the tune of "This Kiss" by Shania Twain.. not consecrated missionary material at all. #yikes) But really. This week was pretty nuts town crazy.

I didn't keep very good notes (something I've had to start doing because seven months of missionary work just all mash together in my head and I'm losing every ounce of memory that I once had) so I don't have much, but I will tell you about the most recent events, haha.

SO Friday was like, probably, top 4 worst days of my entire mission.. haha. Like, random bummer things had just happened all day, then we had this STELLAR lesson planned for Hermana L (who's still really struggling and it hurts my heart so mucho ): and bishop was coming with us but then right as we both pulled up she cancelled and I was just heartbroken. The adversary is working so hard to keep her from progressing to what we all know will make her the happiest. And then we took bishop to see I and that was just the most intense lesson ever and I just cried the whole way home, feeling so lost.

Then, as I bedtime prayed, Heavenly Father gave me the most beautiful experience.

And the next day, Saturday, was one of the most incredibly rewarding days of all my mission.

There's a object lesson we sometimes do with people where you open up a tea bag and dump all the contents into the garbage can. It ends up forming this little cylinder tube. You balance it on the hand of a brave soul and ask if they trust you. Then you light the top of the tube on fire. As the fire inches it's way down the tube it gets really hot and lots of people move their hand and this ball of fire falls to the ground. But if you just stay still, at the moment the fire was about to hit your hand, the ashes and flame float into the air.

As we go through trials, the times get hot and scary and our first instinct is to move away from the flame and from everything else, to move our hand and to drop it all. But as we trust in our Heavenly Father, He will never let us be burned. As we push through to the very end, we are able to float up and out of any trial we were experiencing with His help. I know that His tender mercies are real. I know that as we are faithful in doing what we can, He makes up the rest. And blesses us to feel His love and light. His promises are real and sure and they are available to every single one of us.

I love Him! And the mission. Sharing this beautiful, hopeful message with everyone we meet is so rewarding. The rewards often come after the hard times, but they come.

Love y'all.

Over and Out, XoXooxoX

<3 Hermana Yost

Letter #30 04/13/15

Sometime people get wet....and it's SO happy!

If only I could remember every single thing that's happened in the last two weeks (aka Satan hates technology......and happiness.)

OH MY HEAVENS. Sometimes in life, two weeks seems a lot more like two years and you wonder when you turned into an elder and how your mission president allowed you to extend an extra 6 months. And then you stop with that terrible joke and think about how you've been out for SEVEN months and how that one is completely true and you still can't really believe it. 

And that's all for now, folks. :)

No, really. These last two weeks have been CRAZY days. But also the happiest of all. Last week the happiest happenings was that L, K and their uncle C were BAPTIZED! Woo! It was quite literally the happiest day of my whole life, also the most stressful. Whoever thought that pulling of a baptismal service on Conference weekend was possible was.. right. And also a little bit loco. It was beautiful, though! To see the whole fam walk in to the chapel to watch Conference, knowing they were to be baptized later that day was just so happy. I was just floating on air all day, the words to my very favorite Janice Kapp Perry song of a scripture classic, "And if it so be that ye should labor all your days, and bring but one soul unto me!" .. my joy was so great. 

So much of missionary work is the labor portion, going going going. Feeling the spirit, seeing miracles, but not always feeling the joy. And there's hard things too. Like when our dear sweet Y (the mother of these cute kids) decided she wasn't ready to be baptized the day before and our hearts broke and all the spiritually guided testimony turned into the long suffering life of knowing that The Lord knows her, loves her, and will help us to help her feel more prepared. She is such a beautiful human, and although she's struggling right now, I know through her faith and diligence it'll turn out alright. The hope of the gospel is that as long as we try our very best and learn from our mistakes and just keep going, He will make up the rest. I'm so grateful for a Savior who has promised to do that. 

Something else super beautiful. In single adult Sunday School, C shared his testimony. And.. okay. I couldn't even handle it was SO incredible. Little baby tears streamed as I realized that Heavenly Father let ME be an instrument in helping dear C to find his purpose in life. I'm eternally grateful for the opportunity I have had to serve here, meet and love this beautiful familia.

Sometimes you help people move apartments in pants and also ninas in camp rock tees. #service

Serving Hermano Rico and his super pregnant wife plus slave driver of a 5 year old daughter. #heartshapedsunglasses

Some cool milagros:

 

+ So we work with this beautiful semi less active lady named B. We love her to death, and her and her husband M have really been struggling since before I got here. He was baptized a little over a year ago but was never really super active I don't think. ANYWAYS her husband has been pretty abusive, but he hit her the other night and her brother witnessed it and so they basically have helped her get a protective order and all this stuff. So we went over the other day to visit her, not knowing it was the day that he was getting kicked out of their house. She was in the other room doing something for a second, when M came home from work. She had told us that the police were coming by later to kick him out. SO there's like this thickness in the air and the moment he sees us he asks if we can share something with him. Which was so peculiar, but we decided to watch the Because He Lives video with him and.. WHOA. The spirit was so strong. This man who had really hurt one of our dearest friends was seeking God in his own personal trial and it was the most incredible thing I have ever experienced. I felt SO much pure, pure love for him. The Savior allowed us to see him like He sees him, even amidst all of the things that he had done and the person that he had been. I know today more than ever the love that Christ has for each one of us. Even though we are silly and make mistakes and completely abandon Him sometimes He is ALWAYS there. El esta aqui. With us through every single trial we experience.

 

Sometimes your brains turn to mush while weekly planning and you've gotta just sombrero it out for a second. #hermanasprunt

Bye Bye to my love #fostermomsrule #hermanakingsley

+ So I have a new companera (Hermana Sprunt) and she's just the neatest, but we've been going about trying our hand at navigating the area that I should know by now and all that good stuff. During our planning session, I just felt really prompted that we should knock this certain street. And so we planned to tract on that street as well as visit some less actives. As we were driving to visit the less active lady, I just felt AWFUL about it and I couldn't figure out why The Lord wouldn't want us to visit her. It was a good desire and I'd been thinking about her as well. But we decided to follow that prompting and do what was next on our plans.. go knock that street. LONGGG story short, basically we were walking and this mom and daughter were out by their car. We stopped to talk to them and asked if we could share "Gracias a que El Vive". They invited us in, the mom proceed to cry through the video, and we had the sweetest spirit filled lesson with them. They have a great desire to learn and she knew that she had felt like she needed to get her jacket out of the car for a reason. It was all just the most perfect timing. I've felt that so much lately, that although it kind of seems like we're aimlessly walking around, we're always in the right place when we need to be, as long as we're following the spirit that is oh so very real.

 

Okay, so many words today! Hope this makes up for missing a week (mom). I never thought i'd be this missionary human, but here I am. Filled to the brim with gratitude and all that good stuff. Never forget that you've got someone, a Savior, who thinks the world of you.

 

Love, Hermana Yost. <3

Feliz cumpleanos to Devin :)

Hermana Sprunt

Also swordfish.....#classyapartments

The maintenance crew wishing Devin well, also too nice to ask why a boy would be named Deb. :) (Guy on the rights name in Ramuelle.....aka our best pal.)