dreaming....

YO my people!!! How are you.

I am doing fabulous. 

I love New York and the people here. This work is real. It is simply REAL. God loves all His children and I feel so blessed to help Him bring them back to Him. Ah goodies. 

Get inside my head today:

Preparation day today called for a hair appointment. Um I'm in heaven. The girl that did my hair was from Australia. Her name is Michelle. When she was done with my hair she was headed to fashion week to do Lauren Conrads hair...... You guys!!!!! Woah. Is this real life. I'm dreeeeaaaaming!!!!!!!! Hahahaha. She has done hair at a Chanel fashion show. Michelle is one of my role models. (I even shared some of the gospel with her) haha. She was totally cool. We went to shake shack after that by the flat iron building. YUM. And then we took a trip to the top of the One World Trade Center. SO TALL. Fourth tallest building in the world. Tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. Felt like I was at Disneyland!! It was like a ride!!!! The elevator up was like 20 seconds long and we got to the 102 floor. Haha my heavens. And fun fact did you know the top spiral needle thing is as tall as America is old? I don't know how to explain that nor do I remember how tall it actually is. I just remember I got #chills when they told me. What an amazing building. I LOVE NEW YORK. 

We had a really good week. MLC happened! I gave a 20 minute training on consecration. And actually was pleased with how it turned out!! (Thanks for the prayers) :) felt them for sure! I know that the reason I am able to do this work is because of the many prayers said from both me and my loved ones. PRAYER is real. Heavenly Father is always listening. 

Also. Can we talk about HOW CRAZY it is that MADDIE SIKICH is in the YSA Ward that I am serving in!?! We get to be at church together on Sunday's. And go to YSA activities together. What. CRAZIEST. I love her to death. Happy that one of my good friends gets to see me in missionary ACTION. :)

We cleaned the church last week. Our church is giant. 5 floors. It took so long. But we had pizza after with a member. So pizza always wins.

We have killed 5 mice in our apartment. They are the biggest distraction of my life. Get outta here sicko mice!! They are from satan I swear. Trying to mess with our focus hahaha. AH. 

Claver and Saidou are doing awesome. They will be baptized on October 17th FOR SURE. They said no ifs ands or buts. And Alaza will be baptized on October 3rd. And Adriana will be baptized on October 10th. And Marie France is hilarious and I love her and she brought her son to church!!! YES. He's nine and we have been trying to get to her children. We were so pleased to see both of them. So those are our progressing investigators. They are pretty progressing. Like the most serious investigators I've had my whole mission! Blessings. God is good.

Haha yesterday we were walking down the good old streets of Harlem and this is what some guy said. "Wow look at all the snow that just came to Harlem." We get called the funniest names. We stand out. I never knew people treated different colored people so differently. It's fine tho its great we laugh about it all the time. 

To be FRANK, (ha ha I like the word frank..) yesterday was a hard day. Really hard!! And I feel good telling you about it because

"....It must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my firstborn in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility."

2 Nephi 2:11

So that hard day was there specifically for my happiness. If it weren't there, I wouldn't ever have happiness!! If I didn't know what the hard was, I would basically be dead and my mission would be pointless. Without opposition, life would result as a meaningless "compound in one." 

But life is meaningful. And that's why we have choice. And that's why we can have happiness. And IT ALL WORKS OUT!!! God is there and he loves me and wants nothing more than for me to be happy. So I'm grateful that yesterday was a monster hard day. ;)

So.. some thoughts of mine as of lately:

Casualty. Or in scriptural terms "carnal security." You guys carnal security is REAL. Carnal security is when we let the natural man get the best of us. It is when we only use worldly, earthly and temporal eyes. When we see with the wrong perspective. When we forget to act with total and complete reverence! When we justify. When we rationalize. (Ps rationalization is the first step toward APOSTASY.) haha. We all do at times because NONE of us are perfect. Right? But we MUST catch ourselves in these small moments of casualness. The small casualties can ADD UP. And we know that by small and simple things, great things are brought to pass. That can go either for GOOD or for BAD! If we let the small casualties happen, pretty soon we have one big giant MESS. A mess that satan has trapped you in. 

Nobody wakes up one day and says "today I am going to mess up my life!!!" Like duh? How do you think it happens?? It happens from carnal security. It happens as we are casual about the SMALL and SIMPLE things. 

2 Nephi 28

21 And others will he pacify, and lull them away into carnal security (or casualness), that they will say: All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well--and thus the devil cheateth their souls, and leadeth them away carefully down to hell.

AHHH. Satan is scary. He's a creep. He makes me sick. What a scary verse you guys!!! Am I right? Every Time I read it I get nervous about the SMALLEST moments of casualness. Those small moments of carnal security. Those small things ARE NOT OKAY. They lead to huge big problems. I want you to take a second RIGHT NOW, and think about what some of your casualties are. What are your moments of carnal security. I have been pondering the same thing to myself this past little while and let me tell you repentance is real!!! No need to panic, just repent. :) repent for the small things. The worthiest people are the ones who are repenting EVERY DAY. And that's truth. 

Hey I don't mean to sound preachy but that's just been on my mind. #nocasualties 

I LOVE YOU ALLLL.

ALMOST as much as I love NEW YORK. Ha!!! No teasin. I would love New York even more if my loved ones were here. 

Anyways love you bye!

ABBB