Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello and welcome to another week! By the way, happy Thanksgiving! I hope that you all have an awesome Thanksgiving and really do take a moment to remember the things that you are grateful for and the blessings you have received. I know that I certainly have a lot to be grateful for this year! Last Thanksgiving I had just been in the MTC for a week! How crazy is that?

This week we taught Charles a few times, who has been doing pretty good! He even told us yesterday that he was willing to pray with us! So, it was too bad that we had to cancel our appointment with him. But, now that he's fessed up that he's ready there's no getting out of it! Ha, ha. It was pretty cool, we taught him last week and after we finished he said "What's next! Tell me more!" So we were pretty happy about that!

We also met a woman this week named Vivian and her niece. They sent us a message asking if we could come over and we said "Of course! Who are you?" Ha, it turns out that Vivian had been talked to for a few minutes and given a card by Sister Mckendrick and Sister Williams back in July and she was just now calling. So, I guess those little oym's do pay off in the end some times. It was cool to talk with them and hopefully they'll let us come back soon.

We also picked up three other new investigators this week. One was a referral in a trailer park named Tim and the other are two sisters that we tracked into named Ilatia and Sarah, who actually invited us to come spend Thanksgiving with them, so that's awesome! The trailer park that Tim lives in is an interesting place. People just seem to wander around there for no particular reason. And we met a few people there that we are most certainly never talking to again ha ha. We did meet one really cool guy there though named Dennis. He looked at us and said "You go to that church on Hondo Pass right? I want to go there. I want my son to go there too." Apparently he fell in love with a member in Utah who rejected him but, he's kept her picture all of these years and he's always wanted to know more about what was in her life. So, I'll run with that! Flirt to convert, I guess it works sometimes? Still, not recommended though.

Also, holy referrals Batman! We have like 11 referrals this week! So hopefully something good will come out of those! This week we also found Blockbuster! What! Yeah, it still exists, in El Paso at least. Apparently there are 5 here. And, we made a cake because Sister Dummar finished her first week in the mission and I finished my first year (well, only year I guess) so why not right?

This week I have been thinking about gratitude of course, and Mosiah chapter 2, which is all about gratitude and blessings. Verses, 19-24 and 41.It is amazing how all that Heavenly Father asks us to do is to keep His commandments, which he only gives us to make us happy in the first place! And, equivalent exchange is clearly not a things with God. If we do even our smallest little part to try a little harder, we are ridiculously blessed and compensated for our efforts! That is something that I have really come to see on my mission. I feel like if I never received another blessing, I still wouldn't be "even" with God for all of the things that I have done and things that he has given me! Anyway, something to think about.

Well, I hope you all have an amazing Thanksgiving!

Love,

April