Week 54: It's Your Funeral

Good morning, everyone!

And happy birthday to my best friend, Laurel, who turns 21 today. Super old, right?

I literally donned funeral black for transfers, it was pretty hilarious.

So transfers happened on Tuesday. It was very sad, as I’m sure you were able to guess from the lamentations of my last email. I was doing pretty OK, but then I was just looking at Hermana González, and then I started crying, and then she started crying, and it was an overall mess. Shoutout to the elders who tried to comfort me later but do not know what to do about crying hermanas. Your words weren’t what I would describe as, well, helpful, but it’s the thought that counts!

Earliest photographic evidence of my new companion.

Anyroad, missionary work moves forward, and I have a new companion! Her name is Hermana Noyola, and she’s from El Salvador. She is very kind, and very enthusiastic, and absolutely exuberant about everything! Sometimes our energy together just … explodes. Or maybe short-circuits is the better term? She also knows practically no English (but more than she gives herself credit for!), which isn't what I’d describe as a challenge at this point, but I realize how accustomed I am to just making jokes in the two languages. Both are definitely interesting changes after being with someone as laid-back as Hermana González for four months.

One of the last photos of me and Hermana González (included are not pictures of me crying at having to leave a loved companion jajaja). Side note: Now it’s super awkward because I can’t randomly add photos from other weeks without it being obvious.

In short, this week has been busy. Hermana Noyola is getting the opportunity to learn about a new area and all things medical on the mission end! I love how willing she is to sit next to me when I’m at the computer filling out a form and let me talk everything through. She’s interested in forensic science, which is yet again another career that has much more to do with common medicine than theater does. Although she hasn’t gone to college yet, so the playing field is more even this time.

And of course, we’ve had our spiritually edifying moments. I’ve needed a lot of them. The other day, I was studying 2 Nephi 4:16-35, which some people refer to as Nephi’s Psalm. It’s a really beautiful passage of scripture, and there’s one section I especially love:

28 Awake, my soul! No longer droop in sin. Rejoice, O my heart, and give place no more for the enemy of my soul.

29 Do not anger again because of mine enemies. Do not slacken my strength because of mine afflictions.

30 Rejoice, O my heart, and cry unto the Lord, and say: O Lord, I will praise thee forever; yea, my soul will rejoice in thee, my God, and the rock of my salvation.

There is so much to rejoice over. Even in the sad moments. I get to have another, amazing companion! I get to serve in this fantastic area with spectacular members! I get to see the temple every day from the hills of Baul, and I get so much to be grateful for, every single day. And I am really grateful for my mission, and for the time I still have left. Let’s hope that it doesn’t run out from under me.

It’s what the city is famous for.

—Still kicking,

Hermana Newton