NOVEMBER IS HURR

P DAAYA!

I was just reading through some of my old journal entries and I
realized it was one year ago last week that I made my decision to serve a mission!!! CRAZY. That was a FAST year... I am SO grateful that I made this decision to serve. Heavenly Father is seriously guiding my life. I KNOW that FOR sure.

How was everyone's Halloween!?! You all looked so good. 

I love Halloween.

My Halloween was great!! We went to MLC which is a leadership
training. And that was in Scarsdale NY. I looooooved it. I had so much personal revelation I couldn't even write it all down. Good stuff. And Sister Morgan made us Chili!!!! Which made me SO happy because it reminded me of my moms chili that she makes every year on Halloween. And then afterwards she brought out homemade donuts. I. just. about. died. Yummiest things of my life. I was happy. That night allllll the missionaries in NYNY North mission had to be in by 6:00. So guess what I did that night? BAKED yummmmm cookies. and listened to conference talks. It was so fun. Apparently I cook and bake. and I enjoy it!! Never thought I would. But I do. And my roommates enjoy what I make :) after eating some cookies and cookie dough we had to move around to burn some calories. So I will send some pictures of what we did.. Jumped around just a little…  shhhh And thank the heavens we go to the gym every morning!!

My cheeks hurt from smiling so much out here. I must be happy or something! Every night when I'm in bed It feels so good to relax my cheeks. Hahaha!!

So something I've never experienced ever in my life was being taught by a Muslim! If my mom could see just a few sneak peek previews of a few of some of the situations I've been in I think she would crap her pants!! Hahah So there is this woman named Doris in our ward. And I LOVE her so much. She is from India! And she is married to a Muslim. He lives in India. So yes Doris lives here in Connecticut and her husband lives in
India. And they both have different beliefs. Sooo cool.
Doris is such a good example to me because she is one of the strongest members I know! Doris just came home from her trip to India with her husband. and she was there for like 2 months visiting her husband. I have been dying to see her again so now that she is finally home we went to see her. When we got there her husband was there praying! It was interesting to see how other people pray. She then invited us to sit on the floor and she made us this delicious mint drink. Mmm and some yummy bread. And then her husband came over and looked me right in the eyes and taught me the whole Muslim religion for about 1 hour hahaha. I am almost positive he thought he was going to convert me. I was just openly listening. (Little did he know how strong my testimony is right now) He is so so nice. And VERY passionate about what he believes. He taught me about how they sacrifice Lambs and showed me all sorts of pictures from India. Which was so cool. I felt like I was literally in India. I am going to take a trip to India one day. FOR REAL. And Doris and her husband told me they would plan my whole trip for me! I am way excited. I love Doris.

I LOVE our investigators right now. I haven't talked about them much because there is just so much to talk about. But Rick and Maria are most definitely still progressing. Maria has a bap date in December and I am really hoping to still be here for that! We taught them with some members over the week and that was great. Members are so awesome to bring to lessons because it really does help the investigators feel more welcome at church. I gave rick my FAVORITE book ever "Our Search For Happiness" and I am so excited to hear what he thinks about it. That book is just incredible. I've read it 3 times already. It needs to be connected to the Book of Mormon because it explains what we believe SO WELL. If you have not read that book, I invite you ALL to pick up a copy and open it right up. Your life will change ;) it's by M Russel Ballard.

Christian our nine year old investigator had a baptismal date for Oct. 25th but we pushed it back because we felt that he was not ready! He needs to come to church a few more times. But it's hard because it's up to his mom to get him there. And that's doesn't seem to be a priority in her life. Christian is hilarious. You can only imagine the look on his face when we taught him the law of chastity. Hahaha. Ahhhhh. He is now going to be baptized on December 6th.

Melissa is a new ish investigator and I LOVE her. She is married to a nice man and they have 3 kids and one on the way! She is amazing. I look up to her lots. She and her husband have committed to come to church on Sunday so I'm pumped to see them there!

We just barely started teaching this old woman named Julia! She is baptist and SO nice. She tells me I am an angel over and over and over. She's so sweet. Yesterday I was on an exchange with a sister and we went to knock on Julia's door... Well she opened up and guess what. She forgot to put her pants on. Ah!!!! Haha the poor sister I was with was like what on earth!!!!! Oh Julia. I love to help her out. She is a sweet sweet old woman.

So it was a fabulous week. I would share some of my favorite things I studied this week but I just realized this email is a liiiittttle lengthy and I'm not too sure you guys will want to keep reading more.. So I will end with that. (If you want to get inside some of my thoughts just read my Facebook posts ;)
I LOVE YOU ALL. Thank you for everything.
CTR

Love,
ABBS

Happy Halloweeny:)

#nofilter

It's HALLOWEEN 
week.

ITS BEAUTIFUL here. The trees. I'm just speechless. AHHH.

So I loved this last week. It was just good. I seriously wish that
there was a way for all of you to just watch the highlights of my week like a movie. Because there is no way for you to even understand the things I'm doing and learning. The emails don't do it justice. One day I will invent a camera that magically follows missionaries so that their families can see what they are REALLY doing. I just love my mission.

I think this email will be way random!!

I really really love my companion. She is SO funny. We DIE laughing all the time. This is one experience we had this week. So. One of the members in our ward made us dinner and had us come pick it up. So we pick it up and it was a yummy taco salad. And she gave us this giant chocolate cake. Haha. We looked at it and We were like psh. Not even tempting..(or so we thought.) I told Sister Wilkes I wasn't going to eat any of it because I would just feel sick after. HA. Well she opens the box and mmmmmm. I stared at it really hard. And then I said MMM I will just lick the frosting. So I lick a tiny tiny bit. Then she's like I wanna try!! So she gets a piece and is just loving it. Then I was like mm I will have a liiiiitle more. ... 5 minutes later we had devoured the cake. Hahahah. I was like SISTER WILKES what the crap just happened!!! We had chocolate everywhere. I was just not feelin so hot. And then we were just crying laughing. I haven't laughed that hard in a loooooong time. Well you might think this story is pointless and boring but let me tell you what I learned. Temptations come LOOKING very nice. That chocolate cake... Looked real good. I thought I could just be around it and not even give in. But it took ONE tiny lick and then 5 minutes later I looked like a criminal with chocolate on my face. I couldn't even remember how I got from point A to point Z. If I had just not even licked the cake I would have been healthy and happy. This little story is just way too similar to the temptations we have in life. They come lookin real nice. And you KNOW not to give in. You KNOW that you will feel like crap after. But for some little reason right when the temptation is in front of you, NOTHING else matters. Am I right? And then after you've given in to that temptation you can't understand why it was that you let your guard down in that moment. DONT GIVE IN TO TEMPTATIONS. DONT DO IT. Just make your decision RIGHT now that you won't give in to certain things. Life will be better that way. CTR.

Now let me share my favorite green smoothie recipe with you all because Its so good.
1 cup of unsweetened coconut water
2 big handfuls of spinach
1 frozen banana
2 tablespoons of almond butter
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
1 scoop of protein powder
And ICE
And then think of sister dunford when you drink it. YUM.

We had stake conference which was great!!! This stake is real great.
Super awesome members. We were at a training meeting and some man
walked up to me and was like do you know me? I was like no. And then
come to find out he is my dads REAL good friend!!! I had another one
of those moments where I just felt SO blessed to be where I am. He is going to take my companion and I out to lunch. I can't explain how grateful I am for the people that are so kind to me. Ahhhh so
grateful.

My dads good friend from college!

Another one of those blessed moments was when this cute investigator
named Monica from Brazil bought me two pairs of real nice tights!! She had seen me at the trunk or treat on Friday night and saw that I was a little bit cold. And my legs were just a shivering. So the next day she went and bought me tights!!! HOW NICE!!! She didn't even know me very well and she isn't even a member of the church!!! I love people.

OH my goodness I just read Alma 32 today in my Book of Mormon reading and I just AH. It's SO good. FAITH really really is like a seed. Everyone needs to go read Alma 32 right after they are done reading this email because it's just my favorite thing. Doesn't even matter how many times you have read it. Read it OVER and OVER. I love the Book of Mormon.

Okay. My thoughts are so scattered right now I wish I could keep
typing. But I will end now :)

I LOVE the crap out of all if you. And I know, with my whole heart
that this church is true.

Love abbs!
Ps I painted this on a window at the care center we volunteer at :)
the old people LOVE it. SO fun :) hehehehe

HAHA and whatever the crap Ebola is I am laughing so hard at this
little picture. Ebola Ebola Ebola. Wah wah wah.

Sis Mish Dunford

Hi there!!  it's MEEEE!! Again :)

What a great week. I literally feel like I just emailed yesterday. Wowza!

So I am on Facebook now and oh my WEIRD. You all still exist!!!! Haha the first time I logged on I was like what on the earth. I felt like a sinner. (But I'm not) haha it just felt so weird to be on FACEBOOK. I won't lie to you and tell you it wasn't distracting at first. Haha!! I was like "WHAT she is pregnant?" Or "what!!! She is home from her mission?" Or "WHAT she's engaged!?!" Hahaha oh man. Having Facebook as a missionary calls for lots of self control. Very important not to scroll through the newsfeed. 

Let me just tell you. It took two whole days to clean up my profile page. HAHA. I was laughing my head off going through old posts. So funny to see what I posted back in middle school. Being an online proselyting missionary is SO cool. I know that I was specifically called to the NYNY North Mission as an online Proselyting missionary for a reason. I am so excited to do the Lords work using these incredible tools. I feel like there is so much success that will come from using the Internet. The Internet can be kinda crazy so we need more people posting GOOD things and spreading the gospel. The more good we put on the Internet, the less bad. Yeah? 

Something wayyyy awesome that I have been so excited about-

My companion and I are skyping a girl that lives ALL the way in London. What? 

Yes. She lives in London and we are teaching her from New York. Like I don't know what you think about that, but I KNOW that the lord has given us these tools for a reason. Being an online proselyting missionary is such a privilege. The lord knows what's up. He knows exactly how to hasten his work. I feel SO BLESSED. 

So one of my favorite days of the week was when my wonderful Aunt's brother and sister took my companion and I out to lunch. I just can't believe how lucky I am that my mission president allows us to go to lunch with people we know. So we ate at this cute diner in New Canaan and then had the YUMMIEST gelato afterwards. And then Kemery (my aunts sis in law) took us to this store that she works at and spent like 200 ish dollars on my companion and I. I was asking Kemery where she works and then she told me and I was like OH do they sell Moroccan oil?? And she was like yeah! Let's go get you some! I was like oh noo we don't have to! But she insisted :) so we walk in and they also had my favorite skincare. Khiel's. I was in heaven. Kemery was like what do you need!?! (and this whole time I'm thinking that I was going to pay for my products) so I picked out my eye cream and my Moroccan oil and I was ready to pay. And then kemery was like do you want some lipstick and (you know me I LOVE lipstick) ha. So she got me a wonderful lip color and then we're going to pay and she just bought ALL of it. I was like NO no no!!! And she was like are you kidding I am paying for this. I died. THEY WERE SO NICE. I need to somehow thank them. They spoiled Sister Wilkes and I. TENDER MERCIES. I feel so blessed I can't even handle it. I love Heavenly Father. It's crazy how well he knows me. And he knows exactly what I need. Ugh I just feel blessed. 

So I'm still going strong with the two splits a week! Sister Wilkes is a sister training leader just like sister Amorim was. So splits splits splits. I really do love going on splits. I have gotten to know so many sisters on a whole new level. I am also able to take different things I like from each sister and try to implement them in myself. I am learning so much. AH blessed. 

So this week I have been thinking a lot about a talk called the Character of Christ. By David A Bednar. (And you know he's one of my faves.) well anyways. What an amazing talk. I've read it before but ahhh it's just such a good talk. EVERYONE needs to read it. It talks about how Christ even with ALL he went through he was still able to turn outward and help others. Like I don't know about you, but if I had to go through what Christ went through I would just be like ugh poor me poor me. Because I have natural man tendencies. (All of us do) but how lucky are we to have Christ as our role model.  Christ had so much he could have complained about yet he was ALWAYS thinking of others. 

Something I have been doing everyday on my mission- 

In preach my gospel there are a whole bunch of Christlike attributes. And every day I pick ONE. And I focus on that attribute and try my hardest to implement that through out my whole day. So yesterday day was love. Today is faith. And I wish I could better explain how much it has helped me. We hear in church or in our day to day lives that we need to be more like Christ right? I always remember before my mission in church talking about how we need to try to be more like Jesus. But how often did I ACTUALLY try to be like Jesus. I didn't think about it in my everyday activities. But when I focus on ONE attribute a day and keep that thought in the back of my head I am actually acting. Not just living life knowing I need to be like Jesus. I'm really TRYING to be like Jesus. So I'm only telling you this because I want others to feel closer to our savior just like I have. I have come so much closer to my Savior just by focusing on one attribute a day. It is blessing my life!!! I sometimes get tears in my eyes when I think about how blessed I am. Ahhhh this church is true. 

I LOVE you all so so much. I wish I could give you all a hug and a great big kiss on the cheek I love you so much. Thank you for the wonderful Halloween treats and letters and EVERYTHING. You guys have a fabulous week. 

Love abba.

Also sorry I have like no pictures I will try to take more today :)

My TWIN sister KIM and I did not plan to match. Haha so funny. I love her.

Happy Abbey!

Helllllooo!!
How is everyone!?! How is fall in UTAH.

I had an awesome week!!! I love my new companion. She is seriously the nicest person I have ever met. She totally lets me be me and so that makes me SO happy. (You know how with certain people you feel like you can't totally be yourself?) Well Sister Wilkes is awesome and I can be myself around her. I love it. We are teaching lots of people and having a great time.

1st of allllll. Today is P day. And guess who I saw while in the city. (You will never believe me)

ALTA'S DANCE COMPANY!!!!!! Like what!?! Did that really just happen??? IT DID. I loved it sooooo so so much I can't even explain. That was for sure the highlight of my week. My companion and I were just standing in Columbus Circle and all of the sudden I see all these beautiful girls that look super familiar. And then boom. I'm surrounded by my lovely dance sistas. (I kinda felt like a famous person) HAHA. I am SO grateful that I got to be a part of that team in high school. I owe a lot of who I am to that team. Alta's dance company is so awesome. Traci and Diana know what's up. I'm still sitting here like wait am I dreaming? Am I really on a mission in New York? Did I really just see my old dance girls in NYC!?! I'm SO GRATEFUL for where I am in life right now. I feel so so so blessed. #dreaming

 

   

 

  

   
Monday night we carved pumpkins for FHE and that was soooo fun. Me and another sister in my zone are obsessed with pumpkin.
Pumpkin everything. I LOVE pumpkin. I carved a cat in my pumpkin and it is so cute. I also decorated our apartment with the Halloween decorations that momma Kendra sent me :)

yay Halloween!!

OH we FINALLY got our car back!!!! SO HAPPY. Cars are good.
So updates on some people..

Rick and Maria are progressing. Slowly. Which is FINE!! Progress is
progress. They are super serious about this which I LOVE. They are
going to be amazing members. Rick and Maria are great.

Christian!
He is 9 years old! I don't think I have talked about him much.. but he is one of our investigators and he is getting baptized on October
25th. He's so cute. I really enjoy teaching him. His mom is a less
active. And we reallllly want his mom to start coming to church more.

Tia-
She is amazing. She will be baptized soon I can feel it. She feels the spirit so strong. I just don't think she realizes that she is feeling the spirit.

I would share something about everyone we are teaching but I don't
feel like typing it. If only you could just get inside my head for a
second. I have so much to share but I'm not quite sure how to get it
all out :)

Thoughts-

Growing up I never liked service. Straight up honest. I hated doing
it. And I never understood why people would say things like you're the happiest when you serve others. But guess what...
I NOW understand. And I LOVE serving others. It just feels good. No other feeling but pure goodness. I love service. I can't believe the happiness that comes from serving others. I find myself asking everyone what I can do to help serve them and I'm like WOAH who am I. Haha.missions are magic. I cannot imagine what my life would be like without this experience.

Something I've been thinking about THIS week-

WHO are we after everything in this world is gone. Take away your
house. Your clothes. Your car. Your job. Your calling. Your money.
Take away EVERYTHING. And what is left? Who is it. WHO is there. Are you kind? Giving? Faithful? Honest? Humble? Patient? Loving Charitable? Trustworthy? Comfortable? Confident? Etc. This is
something I have been asking myself as I've been studying the
Christlike attributes.  I want to be just like Christ!!! I am SO
grateful to have Christ as my example. Yes there are other people I
want to be like (Selena Gomez, Tay swift, etc etc) haha. But Jesus Christ is WHO I want to be like. I love him and I am so grateful for what he has done for ALL of us. He is the perfect example. This church IS TRUE.

I love you ALL. I promise if you just keep choosing the right and keep following Christ's example, EVERYTHING will be okay in the end. I'm so happy. Okay? Happy happy.

 

Love,

Abba

#LDSconf LOVE

Hi HI!!! Happy October Halloween fall!! The leaves are ALMOST at their prettiest I'm dying for them to change completely :)

So I'm sitting here trying to think of the highlights of the week and the whole week was just FULL of things I could write about. I can't even get out what I want to. Let's see where to begin...

Oh!! So I have a NEW companion!! Her name is Sister Wilkes. You can FB stalk her. She is SO cute. Soooo so nice. She goes home in two cycles!! Crazay!! She's awesome. I have only been with her today but we are already getting along way well and finding that we have lots of things in common :) she is talllll!! Brown hair. Cutest. She just came from The Bronx. She's from Pleasant Grove UT. I think...

Sister Wilkes and I

So yes Sister Amorim is gone. :( She went to The Bronx!!! Sad to see her go but change is gooood!! Im pumped for this new cycle. This cycle is a 7 week cycle which is one week longer than normal so it will be great.

General Conference. How can I even explain my thoughts. I can't. Conference was so good and I can't even get out of my head what I want to. I LOVED it. Love love loved it. Saturday was awesome. It was POURING rain here and my companion and I went and got pumpkin hot chocolate. MMM. Then we arrived at the chapel and lucky me I had TWO packages waiting for me and 4 letters. It was like Christmas. My favorite day of the mission so far. It was so fun knowing that my family and friends were doing the same thing that I was. The only difference was, I was in my church clothes not at home being comfy and lazy. Haha!! Those were the days... Teasin. Church clothes are great. Anyways. So we watched the Saturday sessions at the church with the other elders in our district and that was funny because nobody else came. Ha!! We watched it on the big screen in the chapel. Then on Sunday we watched the first session in the chapel again. For the second session we went to a members home. The Potters. :) We invited our investigators Rick and Maria to come watch and eat dinner with us. It was perfect. I LOVED David A Bednar's talk. I love him. He is amazing!! His talk couldn't have been more perfect for Rick and Maria. Right as he said something like "this talk is for the non members" Rick and Maria perked right up and started listening closely. I was trying so hard not to smile hahah!! It was TOO PERFECT for them. There were so many good talks I can't even handle it. Another one that I loved was the one talking about forgetting which way we face. That was AWESOME. I am working on reading over ALL of them on my iPad. (I love my iPad) Another thing I loved in conference was one of the prayers on Saturday when the man prayed for the missionaries and their parents and their grandparents. That just made me smile. I loved it. 

Something cool- so have you heard of that new movie called "Meet the Mormons"?? Well the WHOLE NYNY North Mission gets to watch that this Friday!! I'm wayyyy excited. A movie!!! YES. It will be awesome. We are all so excited.

Patricia- 
We met this woman tracting, Patricia. She is 52 years old. an amazing person. Just a visual detail, (she is black.) She knows the bible very well and was confused about why we believe that God and Jesus Christ and the Spirit are three SEPARATE beings. She was like "girls you come in here and I'll show you that they are ONE" so we were like okaaaay... Haha she started showing us some scriptures in the bible and then we were like oh dear this is just going to turn in to a bible bash. So we somehow connected talking about God our Father, his son Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost, to the restoration. We talked about the Book of Mormon being ANOTHER testament of Christ. She was like "say whaaaa ANOTHA testament!?!" And then she got super curious about the stories that happened in the Americas and was like "oh wow yeah that would make sense that God would reveal things not only to the people in Jerusalem!!" We were like yeaaaah!!! We knew that teaching these truths would bring the spirit way more than having a bible bash. And when we told her about Joseph Smith and how he asked God which church was true.. She goes what!?! He dared to question God!?! Haha. We were like girl. If you lack wisdom, you can ask God. If you knock, it will be opened to you. Seek and ye shall find etc etc. she goes "I bet Joseph Smith was like "am I trippin...!!?!" Hahaha! we gave her the restoration pamphlet and told her to go over it and pray.   We went back to Patricia's house and she welcomed us in her home and asked us to wait on the couch for like 10 minutes while she and her mom finished eating dinner. We sat there calmly and just rested our bodies hahah! (Little did we know what was coming for us)

Patricia came in the living room and sat down. We started going over the restoration again and started talking more about the Book of Mormon. We gave her a copy and explained that it goes hand in hand with the bible. she was like dude I'm gonna read this!! Well. Then. In comes Patricia's wonderful mother. Her name is Del. (I only wish that this lesson was recorded.) she came in and started getting mad at us for teaching Patricia. She started quoting the bible and yelling at us. She was like "you girls are NOT prophets of God" and your Book of Mormon is wrong! And the bible is the ONLY truth. And Jesus is our savior not Joseph Smith!! And on and on and on. YELLING. She started kneeling on the ground and standing up and kneeling down and standing up and walking around and shouting to God. I felt sad because I knew that because she was being so loud there was no way that the spirit was going to be there. It soon turned into an argument between Patricia and Del. Sister Amorim and I were like ugh. We ended up leaving on a good note and we are going back to meet with Patricia on Friday!! :) so let's pray that her mothers heart might be softened a little bit.  It's really sad when people hearts are SO hard. I want Patricia's mom to just listen to general conference. If only everyone in the world would just listen to General conference!! 

bye bye Sister Amorim :(

Well I have to go. And I wish I could tell more about the people we are teaching!! But with transfers today it's been crazy. So I will end on that. 

Love you ALL thank you for EVERYTHING. CTR. 

Love,

Abba

MAY THE ODDS BE EVER IN YOUR FAVOR...(transfers)

It's OCTOBER. YESSS. I love everything pumpkin and halloweeny and fall ish. :)

Transfers are in ONE week. Hear me? One week. This cycle was one week shorter than normal but I can't believe how fast it came. Let me just tell you my prediction- Sister Amorim and I probably won't be together another cycle. Which is SO sad. But it's OK. We will see what happens...!! I have loved having her as my companion. We sure have fun together.  

General Conference is SO soon and I can't explain how happy that makes me. The General Women's Conference was Saturday night and I enjoyed that SO much. I really loved Uchtdorf's talk. I took lots of good notes. I love this gospel.

This is.....

THE SECRET LIFE OF THE LDS MISSIONARY 

(Haha)

Alright people lets get right to it. Honesty hour. You are not allowed to judge my honest "natural man" thoughts okay!? HAHA I'm only human. I would be straight up lying if I didn't tell you this was a HARD week!!! (But it was SO GOOD for me.) A much needed hard week. #missionaryrollercoaster.  There was one day that was EXTRA hard. My companion and I were street contacting, People were rejecting us right and left!!! It was way hot outside. We both had colds, we had no car to get to our next appointment, and I happened to just find out that my BFF from birth got engaged. (Talk about the struggle right!?) haha don't worry I know how selfish this sounds. 

Anyways I was questioning things like..  why can't I talk to my family whenever I want, why can't I be home to see my best friend get married, why don't we have a car to get around, why is nobody listening to this message that will give them eternal life!!! why can't I listen to my favorite music, Why am I out here with random people that I don't even really know, why am I not at home making money, why am I sacrifcing my body and eating whatever the members put in front of me .. Why why why. It was one of those "natural man" moments. You know, sometimes we as humans have those moments. Yeah...? (Even missionaries) Hahah. Well my companion and I were having a ROUGH day. We came home to the apartment to eat lunch and we both shed a few tears. (If only you could watch us like a movie.) two 19 year old girls thinking it's the end of the world because the mission is HARD. Hahaha. My best friend just got engaged. It was just icing on the cake. We BOTH were like What. Is. This. Mission. Thing. (Talk about companion unity) 

We decided to pray together because #prayalways (2nd Nephi 32:8-9) we prayed that the lord would soften our hearts and help us be more optimistic. 

The day went on. And we talked. And we walked to our next appointment. On our walk it was hilarious because there happened to be a live band playing some lovely jazz music. Haha we laughed and smiled as we walked passed. Then we saw a box of the cutest puppies!! We then saw our new investigator Tia! And she happened to be going through some tough things that day and she was starving. I was able to give her my granola bar and my apple sauce and let her borrow our phone. The day went on I started to see lots of little tender mercies.

My "why" thoughts started to become WHY am I being so selfish.

I started thinking okay abb. WHY are you out here. Why. What am I doing this for. What is my PURPOSE? I was then led to think of the missionary purpose.  My purpose is to invite others to come unto christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and his atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end.

My purpose as a missionary is the Doctrine of Christ. My purpose is the SAME ish as Christ's purpose. I am kinda saving the human soul yeah!? I thought about that a lot. Christ is So important. He came so that WE could live with our Heavenly Father again. So that we could inherit the kingdom of God.  

3 Nephi 11:33 this is Christ speaking to the people in the Americas after his resurrection.

"And whoso believeth in me, and is baptized, the same shall be saved; and they are they who shall inherit the kingdom of God." 

And then he continues to talk about how we need to become as little children and repent and be baptized. 3rd Nephi 11 = Happy Abbey. 

(Side note: Sunday was the Primary Program and I had tears in my eyes I loved it SO much. The children were so special.) 

Later Sunday I did my Book of Mormon reading and I was in Mosiah 3 and in verse 19 it says

"For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father."

I have read that verse multiple times in my life but it was exactly what I needed to read right then. Kinda a tiny slap in the face. Like hello Abb wake up for a second and quit the lame natural man thoughts. It just connected everything that I was thinking about. Natural man, putting off the natural man, becoming better through the atonement, become like the little children. 

Conclusion to my thoughts. 

I am a missionary. And I am sharing with others the grand recipe to eternal life. And tho it's hard, tho I am sacrificing some things, I CAN GIVE 18 months to help further Gods work here and help save some human souls. And thank the heavens for the atonement so that when I DO have those natural man thoughts, I can change and become like the sweet sweet children that sang in the primary program. My mission is my favorite thing In the whole world. I wouldn't come home if somebody paid me a million dollars to come home. This experience is one that I will cherish FOREVER. Serving a mission is like nothin else. Hard and tiring and hard. I love it. I LOVE IT. 

CTR. Love you alllll. 

Love,

Abbs

just a little flashlight

You guys.. it can't already be PDAY AGAIN!? What on earth. Time is flying. Where do I even start. So much happens every week and there is NO way I can put it all in here. But.. My week was PERFect.  Last P day one of the members took us to get a manicure and SHELLAC done and I was filled with happiness. YES. (Shellac should be my middle name) ahahah. My ward is amazing! We went to this relief society dinner on Saturday night and it was BEAUTIFUL. It was at one of my favorite member's home. She lives in a fabulous white house with a beautiful view of the ocean behind her. It was one of those nights where I felt like I was dreaming. It was perfect. Pinterest perfect. (I have a lot of those nights where I feel like I'm dreaming.) I will try to send a picture but it won't do it justice :)

I am OBSESSED with Connecticut. And New York. I will live here one day. I sound dramatic but I literally can't breath when we drive passed certain houses and sights. It is absolutely beautiful. I CANT EVEN explain. My favorite place here is Greenwich Connecticut. I just die. It's. Amazing. I think I will call it home one day. (Okay let's be honest, if I ever have the money... Hahah) but I won't let money stop me. It's my dream to come back here and do hair and be a fashion designer and be on broadway and be a mom and be mormon and be an east coaster. dreams can come true right? Ha

I have found that I have this crazy love for Koreans. We got to go eat dinner at this cute Korean family's house and I was in Heaven. I love Korean food and I love Korean people. Maybe one day I will move to Korea too..

I love being a missionary.

We found this lovely woman named Tia who has one of the hardest lives I think I've ever heard of. Basically she is really poor and has two kids that are little rebels. I won't list everything. But Anyways she is coming to church on Sunday and she started reading the Book of Mormon! I have been so excited about her. She is special. I love her. Hooray for new investigators!!

We have a pretty good teaching pool right now. I wish I could tell
about everyone but no time. I will mention Lynn tho. Lynn is 67 years old and has been a member since she was 40. Although not an active member. Within the last two months she has been coming to church every week and reading her scriptures and being the best person eva. I LOVE LYNN. She has Sooooooo many health problems its insane. But she is still going strong. Her faith is unreal. Last week she got her patriarchal blessing and Sister Amorim and I got to listen. She has no family so she invited us! It was the most amazing blessing I have ever heard. Lynn is awesome and such a special woman.

I have a funny story. Well kinda...

So my companion and I STILL don't have our car. Hahahaha. (At this
point it's just plain funny.) well not funny because apparently the
car was damaged way bad. Which is a way big bummer. And I can't wait
to get to better explore our area with our car.. Well anyways. We
needed to get to the New Canaan chapel. And we were at our apartment. So we started to walk. And this is NOT just a short walk. Quite long actually. But we had to get there. There were no sidewalks so we were just carefully walking on the side of the road. On our walk we decided to practice what we should say as we tract. We were practicing and role playing and we felt really good. And then we both stopped in front of this beautiful old white house and we looked at each other and said let's tract this one. Well. We go knock on the door and this smiling happy blonde woman opens the door. I was smiling at her and I was just about to open my mouth and put to use what we had just practiced but before I could even say "Hi we are the missionaries, --", she started shewing us away like we were insects!!! She was like no bye!!! Bye bye girls!! BYE. ...... HA. As we walked away I just looked at sister Amorim and started laughing so hard because it was hilarious how we felt like we should knock on that door specifically yet the woman inside was so scary and mean. I was like okay Heavenly Father that was kinda funny. Hahah. We decided to knock some more doors. NOT ONE person let us talk to them for more than 7 seconds. I felt so sad. I was like UGH COME ON. Seriously!? After all our practice not one person will even let us talk!?! We were feeling so not motivated at all. It was getting really dark outside. So visualize this. it's really dark, no sidewalk, shivering cold, hungry, and not one person will talk to us. I remembered I had a tiny tiny flashlight in my bag that my grandma had given me for my mission.. It was perfect. Just what we needed to see the road ahead of us. Well we continued on the dark road. We came up to this house and we decided to knock on the door but there was a little gate that we had to go through first before we could get to the front door. We were trying to open it but it would NOT open. So I was like hmmmm maybe it's a sign that we shouldn't go to this house..? Sister Amorim said hmmm or it could be satan not wanting us to share our message with these people. Ha I was like well yeah okay. Well we couldn't get the darn gate open
so we looked around for another way to get in. There was an opening by the side of the house so we got in right there. We walked through the gate and all of the sudden there was this insanely scary wild stray dog barking and growling at us. It looked like one of the Hyena's from the lion king. Just way ugly and way scary. We (of course) screamed way loud. Ha! I shined my flashlight in it's eyes and it took a few steps back. It was literally about ready to pounce on me. Haha we were terrified. The dog was a beast. We were SO scared. So we somehow escaped from the front yard and ran as fast as we could away from that beast. We were so tired. We were thinking about turning around and heading home because we were just having no success and it was dark cold and scary. But then we for some random reason decided to keep walking till we got to the church. To shorten this long story we eventually made it to the church and lucky us the young women were there for mutual. AND. There were two non members there!!! And we set up an appointment with them!!! Magical huh!?!
Here's a little scripture that I related to that night :)
Alma 26:27
Now when our hearts were depressed, and we were about to turn back,
behold, the Lord comforted us, and said: Go amongst thy brethren, the Lamanites, and bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto you success.

We sure felt like we succeeded when we got there :) I LOVE that scripture.

I LOVE YOU ALL.
I LOOOVE this gospel. It's true. We just have to soften our hearts and read gods words and listen to the prophet and pray, and go to church, etc. to know that it is true. I know that it is. That's why I am out here tellin people about it. This is the most important work ever. It's good. And hard. And good. I'm a growing weed.
Love you love you. CTR

Love,
Abbbbbbbba
Ps I apologize for any spelling errors or grammar issues ;) no time to check