Thanksgiving, Visa News, and Board Week

Hi Family!

With it being Thanksgiving Break, practically everyone was gone, so this week was really slow.

But Tuesday with Stephanie and Justin was fantastic. I seriously can't say enough about how much I love them. Justin had to work, so we just met with Stephanie. Sister Cha and I had literally no idea what to talk about when we went in there. We felt like we had kind of hit a roadblock when it came to where to go next with them. We'd been fasting and praying so hard for them and that night, things felt a little different. Good different. I finally had Stephanie read Mosiah 4:9 which I had been meaning to do forever, and I hope it helped her at least a little bit. She told us that she doesn't need answers to her nature of God questions before she'll get baptized and I feel like that was a huge step in the right direction. We read the introduction to the Book of Mormon and what it says in the Bible Dictionary about prayer. Stephanie said she can see her life as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and that it looks really good. I love that so much. I like that they think about getting baptized and how it would bless their life. I want so badly for Justin and Stephanie to get the answers to the prayers and the testimonies they're working so hard for! They are a huge part of the reason I'm not ready to go to Spain yet.

 
Thanksgiving was the best. We woke up early and went to the UVU field with our zone.

Our whole zone, plus President McCune

We played rugby, football, and volleyball. President McCune and his son even came and played with us for a little bit!



Sister Cha, Sister Quist, me, weirdo Elders

Sister Barrera (from my MTC trio) and me at rugby

The two dinners we had been invited to were at the same time, so we couldn't go to both. We ended up going to the Winn family's house with the Polynesian Elders for a little bit.

Us at the Winn's (Elder Hifo being a punk, Elder Salvador - my grandpa, Elder Va'enuku, me, shorty Elder whose name I don't know,  some other Elder I don't know, Sister Cha, and then Elder Reher in front)

We played some games and had some turkey and then headed to our other dinner with the BYU Elders at the Gill's (obviously). 


The Gill family!!!!!
Mindy and Nate (their son and his wife), Collin, Amy, Bro. Gill, Sis. Gill, Elder Baisden, Sister Cha, me, Elder Elliott

They had a ton of people over. The food was delicious, and someone even made pretzel jello (not as good as yours, Mom) which made me miss home for about 2 minutes. After dinner we all gathered in the living room to do this gratitude thing. During dinner we had all written on little pieces of paper something we were grateful for. Then the little cousins took turns reading them and we all guessed who they belonged to. I said I was grateful for the beautiful weather, Sister Cha said she was grateful for the Savior, Elder Elliott said he was grateful for Elder Baisden, and Elder Baisden said he was grateful for Elder Elliott. Lame. Then we helped clean up and played Nertz. Oh my gosh, best game ever. I want to play it every day for the rest of my life. Haha it's right up there with Skipbo on my list of favorites. It was nice to not have to leave right after dinner, and to get to hang out and enjoy being with a family for a little bit.

Saturday night we went to this guy Jeremy's baptism. He wasn't someone we were teaching, but the Elders couldn't find anyone to play the piano, so I did. Convert baptisms are my favorite. It's the best part about being a missionary. The Spirit there is incredible and it's amazing to see how excited they are. We say success on a mission isn't about numbers, but it is about the people those numbers represent. Seeing people come closer and closer to Christ and watching them change their lives to live the way He did, it's a miracle. It's seriously my favorite part.

Yesterday we taught Sharing Time in the Primary of one of the family wards we cover. It was the cutest thing ever. I miss teaching my little CTR 7 babies. Each class had written a couple questions they wanted to ask us, so we took time to answer them. My favorite question was, "Do you get good haircuts?" The sunbeams asked us that.

Elder Elliott fixed our toilet. It had been flooding like every single day.
He fished out two bobby pins. Probably my fault. Oopsies.

Oh! Visa news. Alright, so last Sunday at one of our correlation meetings the high councilman in charge of missionary work (who actually works at the MTC) told me if I called him on Monday he could give me an update on my visa. So you better believe I did. He said this past summer, the MTC, BYU, and Spain made an agreement where BYU would send a student over to help them with all their visa paperwork, and things were moving along pretty smoothly. Well, the student came back home like a month and half ago. So since then, nobody has gone to Spain. They've agreed to have another student go back over January 2nd though. So I should be gone shortly after that. I'll definitely be here for Christmas though. Yayyyyyy!

And this week is Board Week. It's the last week of the transfer, so the AP's and President McCune will be taking this week to pray and make decisions about where everyone will go. I can't believe these 6 weeks are almost over! Transfer calls are a week from today and then transfers are next Wednesday! I think I'll probably stay here until I go to Spain. At least I hope that's what happens! I'm not ready to leave this area. We'll see. Whatever the Lord wants I guess!

I hope everyone had a happy and safe Thanksgiving! I'll talk to you in 29 days!

Love,

Hermana Munden