Mady's Missionary Moments: It All Comes Down to This Moment

Oi família e amigos!!

I hope you are all doing well and that you had a wonderful Christmas!

This week was slightly crazy and a lot of stuff happened.

We are teaching a little girl, ten years old, named Lorena. We went back to visit her and she had read the whole Plan of Salvation pamphlet! She started saying she didn´t really know if she had understood it and then she went and explained it all! It was amazing! I was so impressed with how much she understood and she explained more than was in the pamphlet! It was crazy!

Anderson and Andreza, two of Sister Ogle and Sister Pina´s investigators were baptized.

Well, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we weren´t able to find a single new investigator. We spent the days knocking doors. I was sad and frustrated and I didn´t know what to do. So I prayed a lot and I started a fast. And on Thursday we found two investigators! Paola and Eduarda! It was seriously one of the biggest blessings this week.

We held a "District meeting" in our front room because district meeting was cancelled. It was good. We learned and shared a lot and it was wonderful!

We had the branch Christmas dinner party, but they started at 9 and so we weren´t able to stick around. But the members brought us a ton of food the next morning!

Christmas Eve we tried knocking doors but no one was home...and those who were yelled at us or politely told us they didn´t want our message.

We had two parties. We went to a less-active´s house and we ate a lot of food and just had a ton of fun. It was great!

And then we went to the branch president´s house. We had permission to stay out until later and we had dinner there. That was a lot of fun too! But holy cow I ate way too much.

Christmas was awesome. We got to skype and that was super great :)

Well, that was basically this last week in a nutshell.

So, as I now have 1 year, 5 months, and about 2 weeks on the mission my time is coming to a close. I was trying hard to think about something that I could share with you. And here is what I came up with:

18 things that my mission has taught me have more value than I understood before, in no particular order:

1- My family

2- My Savior

3- The Book of Mormon

4- Drying machines and dishwashers

5- The Mormon Tabernacle Choir

6- E-mailing systems

7- Service rendered by others

8- The healing power of the Atonement

9- Peanut Butter

10- Formal education and seminary/institute

11- Cars!!!

12- Air conditioning

13- The Church Manuals

14- The Gift of Tongues

15- Sun screen.....and aloe vera when I don´t use the previously mentioned

16- Google

17- The capacity to laugh at the small things, including myself

18- The love of our Heavenly Father for His children

If there is one thing that I could let you all know that I have learned on my mission it is that I know my Savior lives. I know that He atoned for all of our sins. I know that He loves us. He died for us and He rose from the dead. He healed the sick, the blind, the maimed, and the hurt and He still heals today. With Him everything is possible. Because of Him we will live again. Because of Him we can have eternal families. Because of Him we will see our loved ones again. Because of Him, we can face our challenges and overcome our weaknesses. He is the answer. And He is the light. He is the way. And He will guide us if we will turn our hearts to Him.

I love you all. I hope that you choose during this year to follow the Savior a little more, to be a little more like Him.

He lives. In His name, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Happy New Year!

See you all soon!

Sister Wilkins

ps. this is possibly the last time I will be communicating with y'all via email. If you want to talk to me afterwards, you can find me on Facebook :) haha

Baptism