Talihina-Week 9

Oh what a beautiful morning!!!! Oh what A BEAUTIFUL DAY!!! It has been so beautiful these past few days! It's about 62 degrees out right now and I’m LOVIN it! :) We have had a great week. Tuesday was a little rough. Sister Gee and I were missing the Vendels and Charleston pretty bad and we kind were in a funk all day and that was awful...longest day of my life. I've been really blessed to only have had a few of those days my whole mission, but truly they're a choice. I NEVER want to have another one of those days again! I was really feeling bad about my life cause I have had a few of those days on my mission but this morning during my personal study I really came to an understanding of exactly how the lord feels about those days. I was reading about patience haha and I read about the sons of Mosiah and how they had this really wicked past but after they repented they wanted to share the gospel with everyone and the Lord allowed them to. Then later when they had hard times the first thing he told them was to be comforted. And for the New Year’s we've been sharing D&C 6:33-37? And it's all about having faith in the lord and fearing not to do good. "Fear not little flock" is my FAVORITE part of those scriptures. The Savior and our Heavenly father don't ever want us to feel inadequate or unworthy. They LOVE us SO much! They' realize we're weak and they'll pick us up and guide us back to safety if we let them. The highlight of my studies this morning was reading the talk in January's ensign about the prodigal son. READ IT EVERYONE! It's SO good. It truly helped me realize just how much our Father in heaven loves us, even when we do mess up every once in a while. :) YAY for modern revaluation! I'm SO grateful for it. As for the rest of the week, it was great! The weekends are for sure the BEST! We get to go stay with the Cooks in the Veteran's colony and oh my goodness. Those grumpy old men are really loving us. It was the SWEETEST thing ever!! This week they sent out a message in their newsletter that said "We just wanted to recognize the Cooks' sister missionaries. They've done so much to help us lately and just so everyone knows, we've adopted them " :) ISN'T THAT SWEET??? :') Dah! Heavenly Father knows I have a soft spot for grandpas. THEN! At our colony breakfast on Saturday, George, one of the veteran's asked me if I'd still be around in the summer to help him with his garden cause I told him I can and whatnot and when I told him I was going home in June he got all teary eyed and said: "Really? I'm gonna miss you." ...wahhhh I hate loving people when I have to leave them haha!!!! He told me that we'd start the garden earlier than usual and that he'd send me some of them later :) HOW ADORABLE CAN HE GET??? Not to mention that Roger is ALWAYS taking care of us. He sends us texts to make sure we're safe and he is always trying to buy us food haha. AND! The veteran's asked us to perform some songs on the piano/violin (sis.gee plays violin) for Valentine’s Day haha! We got permission to do worldly songs :) It's gonna be a blast. ALSO! On Saturday night. There was a stake youth activity where they should "Meet the Mormons" and they were all told to invite their friends. Well we live like an hour and a half away from our stake center, Fort Smith, but we got permission to go to this because we've been working with one of our young women (who looks like case sometimes so much it freaks me out! I actually screamed at her in the car 'oh my goodness your face freaks me out" hahahah cause she looked JUST LIKE CASS!!) on teaching some of her friends and she invited one of them to go with us. We were able to talk a lot about the church and she had a bunch of questions after the movie so that was AWESOME!!! Youth are SO key! They're friends are just waiting to hear the gospel!!! And as far as our youth missionary challenge. Things are going great! The boys we just baptized are so fantastic. One of the things we challenged the youth to do this past week was to start gospel conversations using "Mormon" words. President Ingle shared a story his grandson had this past week. He was laying his head down on his desk and his teacher asked why he was so tired and he said it was cause he goes to early morning SEMINARY. His teacher asked what Seminary was and then invited him to stay after class to talk more. Well as it turns out his teacher was at a low point in his life and his 16 year old grandson asked if he'd like to learn more. His family invited him over to dinner to meet with the missionaries and after just 2 lessons he's excepted the invitation to be baptized.......WE DON'T KNOW WHO THE LORD IS PREPARING, BUT WE KNOW HE IS PREPARING THEM AND THAT WE'RE TO DO  OUR PART TO HELP HIS WORK ALONG. Just try it out. Instead of skipping over those words that are unfamiliar to people not of our faith USE them! Let a conversation form and then testify and invite. It's so simple and you'll be so blessed. Send me the experiences you have! Pray for those opportunities! :) I love LOVE this work and I can't wait to ...oh wait! I forgot! We're also teaching this fantastic lady named Connor and her sister Dolly. We've taught them twice now and they want to be baptized! They're reading the Book of Mormon and I LOVE THEM SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH! They're a HUGE blessing! HUGE BLESSING! I just am blown away at those who are prepared. They're out there you guys. Just talk to them and invite them! I love you all so much! Have a great missionary week! :)

Love you forever,

Sister Moreno