Howdy!
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| Wearing one of Hermana Jones’ yellow dresses (she loves and is yellow) |
This is the last time I feel like I’m actually able to start my weekly in a customary Southern fashion, so I figured I would. If I seem sad, now you know why.
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| I’m so glad I got to talk to my family on Father’s Day! I love them so much ❤ |
So many amazing miracles have happened in this one week that I am beyond grateful for. The people I’ve had the privilege of meeting, the lessons that I’ve (been) taught, and the companions I’ve had. Both teaching as a missionary, and living in this not-so-little apartment.
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| When you need to see if anyone has a bigger pan, you have to use something for scale. |
I am admittedly very tired from a long day of packing and stressing over being able to ship myself off to a foreign country, so I’m afraid I don’t quite have it in me to describe in grandiose detail the many escapades we went on. A quick rundown of events, though:
1. Becoming instant kindred spirits with Hermana Jones (it’s so unfair we only got a week together; she has forever changed me)
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| This is at the Greatest Relief Society Activity of All Time |
2. The Relief Society activity that had the most delicious cupcakes in the universe. Angel was fellowshipped so well there!
3. Talking to four Steves at one apartment complex while trying to find a member.
4. Being able to do the training for a spiritual and powerful district council.
5. Performing all of “High School Musical” from memory for the quad in a five-part installment.
6. Finding an entire family and their chickens.
7. Going back to their house to make sure we recorded the address correctly, then finding three women, one of them being a Spanish-speaking mom with three kids.
8. Someone we’re teaching inviting us to play soccer with her little daughters and “unos amigos,” only to get there and have her show up with practically a barrio.
9. Explaining all of season one of “Downton Abbey.”
10. Hermana Reidhead becoming everyone’s hairstylist.
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| From left to right: Half of Hermana Aguilera’s face (I am so sorry, mija!), Hermana Radford, Hermana Jones, yours truly, Hermana Reidhead |
I got to bear my testimony on Sunday night as a way to say goodbye to the mission, and it was such a powerful experience. I love the TNM so much, and I’ll never be able to express how much I’ve learned in its entirety. I read from D&C 80. I made some edits to make it about me (as I do with many things):
1 Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you my servant [Mary Newton]: Go ye, go ye into the world and preach the gospel to every creature that cometh under the sound of your voice.
2 And inasmuch as you desire a companion, I will give unto you my servant[s] [Ashley Volk, Dantzel Petersen, Savannah Stevenson, Paola Aguilera, and Kylee Jones].
3 Wherefore, go ye and preach my gospel, whether to the north or to the south, to the east or to the west, it mattereth not, for ye cannot go amiss.
4 Therefore, declare the things which ye have heard, and verily believe, and know to be true.
5 Behold, this is the will of him who hath called you, your Redeemer, even Jesus Christ. Amen.
There are so many beautiful promises and pearls of wisdom in this passage of scripture. Each verse pricks my heart. I just want to say that I know that Jesus Christ himself has been who called me. I don’t know why, but he did. And I was in Columbia, and I was in Bowling Green, and now I’m going who-knows-where in Guatemala. But I am so honored, and so humbled, and I can’t wait to see what joy it brings me.
— Bon voyage (that’s not Spanish!),
Hermana Newton
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