Mother's Day

Dearest Mother,

I loved seeing all of your faces yesterday:) It was awesome to see my family, as well as all the other people that decided to say hi:) It's amazing to see how much people have grown in the last year even. I feel like they have grown so much while I am on my mission. Even more so then they did when I went to college for a year.

Here are some fun stories that happened this week:)

So last week like I told you were transfers. Neither I nor my companion got transferred, but one of the Elders did. It was the first time he was leaving an area, so it was really hard for him. We decided to cheer him up on Monday and so we planned out his whole P-Day for him:) One of the things we did was have a flour fight. I don't know if you have hear or seen it done before, but it was super fun! We didn't want the Elders to know what we were doing though, so we blindfolded them, and had one of the members with us to help guide them to the field of grass a little bit away from our apartment complex. We had earlier prepared a bunch of little nylon sacks filled with flour to take with us. When we got about halfway there, I realized that we had forgotten them, so I had to run back and get them. We told the Elders to stay where they were and we would be right back. When we got back, we discovered one of the Elders decided to try to keep walking, and then he stopped in the middle of the road. (It was a good thing there was a member with them to make sure they didn't get hit by a car.) Sister Danible decided to try and scare them, since they do it all the time to us, so we crept up behind them, and yelled in their ears. It was pretty funny because they jumped about two feet. haha. We kept going though and made it to the field, where we had them stand for a minute so we could take pictures and then we started to hit them with flour! They took their blindfolds off at that point and then retaliated against us, so by the end we were all covered in flour. It was awesome! Sad to see Elder Anderson go, but it was fun to welcome our new Elder here. :) I really do love being a missionary because of all the life long friends that you make with not just the missionaries, but the members as well:)

There really is a lot of potential here in the Albany ward. Yesterday I was telling you a little about it, but I thought I would repeat myself today as well. On Saturday, we planned on going to a little town called Edison (which is about 45 mins away) and then head over to Blakely (which is about 40 mins past that). There are a lot of potential people there for us to teach, that previous missionaries haven't had the opportunity to go to yet because of the far away distance. This month Sister Danible and I have been trying to plan out more of the far away places for us to go visit and then to hopefully help them realize the importance of what we do. While we were out and about, we met with 8 different people, all of whom said that they wanted us to come back, all of whom we were able to set return appointments for in two weeks!! It was amazing to me to see the difference in their attitude towards missionaries when they haven't had us knocking on their doors for the past long while, and how willing they were to listen to us, especially when they hear how far we went to talk to them. It makes me think about how much their souls are worth and that honestly, they are worth a whole lot more than what I have to offer. People coming to Christ is worth any sacrifice I have to make, even if it means a long day of a lot of traveling for me and my companion to come teach them about the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.

If I haven't learned anything else, I have learned a part of how much Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ loves each and every one of us. None are more entitled to His love than any other, and all are equally loved. I know how much He loves me, and I know that He feels that same love for everyone else. I am honored to be the one who gets to help others understand that even more than they might already know. God is most definitely alive! Not just figuratively like many believe, but actually, in the flesh. He watches over every one of us, and knows exactly what you need when you need it. He will always make sure you have all the support you need to get though something when you are going through hard times, but sometimes we just have to dig a little deeper to find them.

I love all of you! (Even those I might not actually know.. I love y'all too!)

Keep on keeping on!

Love,

Sister Monica Walker