My Heart is in Texas: Week 3...You Can Do This!, and Repentance

This week we didn't receive any new sisters. It was kind of sad. There has been a lot of up's and down's this week with sisters and it feels like yesterday it was just P-day. Sister Hansen and I have a new companion, Sister Holmes. She is from Utah and is 19 years old. I don't know too much about her, but she is a great missionary and has a powerful testimony. She is serving in the Belo Horizonte Brazil Mission. She actually just received her Visa as we are emailing so we don't know how long she will be here with us at the MTC.

Her companion went home earlier this week because she has decided to get married. I think a lot of sisters think that coming on a mission will be easy and fun. And it is fun, but it definitely is a lot of work and we are going, going, going all the time. One thing for sure is that even though we are surrounded by so many good missionaries and the spirit here is so strong, Satan still finds ways to discourage and tempt us. A lot of the times it may just be discouraging thoughts, tiredness, feeling like we are inadequate for the job, homesickness, and a lack of obedience.

This week as a District we decided to set a goal to do an English Fast for 24 hours. We actually did it for two days where we only speak Portuguese. Fale Sua Lingua is what we call it and it means speak your language. It has helped our district a lot to be able to gain confidence in the language and to learn sentence structure and new words. It is amazing how much we know and are able to speak. But after 24 hours we were so happy to be able to joke and tell stories in English. Funny because if we were in Brazil right now that would not be the case.

This week I learned a lot about Repentance. It's interesting how you think you know a gospel topic or essential, but then I go to class or a devotional and receive new insight daily.

This week at our Tuesday devotional Elder and Sister Schwitzer of the Seventy spoke. Sister Hansen and I had gotten there early so we got floor seats on the second row. It was such an amazing experience. Sister Schwitzer bore an amazing testimony and shared this quote that her dad said after she had failed her Nursing exam, "Stand tall, hold your head up, throw your shoulders back... YOU CAN DO THIS!" This is something that I could see my dad telling me after failing at something. We just have to be confident, move on, and continue to get better and better.

Elder Schwitzer gave a talk on being a missionary. But one of the points that he talked about made me think about Repentance in a different way. A lot of the time I think of repentance as for sins and mistakes, that this is the only way that I sometimes utilize and think of Repentance. But he said that we need to learn to repent consistently. We need to embrace it! It is for everyone because it is a way to go from good to better, and better to best. I love this because it is so true. Repentance is for everyone because we can always be better and improve upon our weaknesses. They may not be sins but it is something that we need to do to be able to make our weaknesses strengths and continually improve so that we can return to live with our Heavenly Father.

I just want to again thank everyone for their support. Family, friends, and my ward family. You continually inspire and teach me and I love hearing from all of you. I know this church is true and is the most important aspect of my life. It makes me who I am and brings me all the happiness in the world. I am so grateful to have the opportunity to be a missionary, not only to share the gospel with others but to continue to strengthen my testimony. I love my Heavenly Father and my Savior, Jesus Christ. They are my best friends and I know that I can always lean on them and they will help make my weaknesses, strengths.

TE AMO!

Love,

Sister Loo

Finally got a picture with Elder McRae before he leaves. We actually have classes on the same floor so we get to see each other often. It's nice to see a fellow Summerlake Ward member!

Some of the sisters in my District on our temple walks on Sunday. One of the best things about being a STL is getting to know the sisters!

Studying Materials... The desks are too small here.

What's the difference in this pic? Look better dad? :) ahh yes, the right brand of shoes!

Classic Studying pictures... New missionaries, don't get caught doing this during study time. :)

My new companion Sister Holmes and Sister Hansen. We are now a Tri-companionship.

One of the pictures from our lesson with our Investigator Edge. We were teaching the Plan of Salvation and needed to be a little creative so that he would understand the concepts with our simple Portuguese understanding and speaking. It went pretty well and we continue to keep learning more and more in Portuguese.