Here we are at another Monday in Orlando! Time is passing very quickly all of a sudden. I am not used to it!
This week was an interesting one, but a good one. I guess we will start with the best, which is J!! We met with him every day this week, and went on a temple tour with him and his boys. Haha I went on exchanges to Goldenrod
on Thursday, and when I saw J and J (J's 6 and 4 year old sons) the next day, J. looked right at me and said, "I didn't see you last week!!" (....we assumed that meant "I didn't see you yesterday") Haha we had a good laugh at that. Now the old Sister Missionaries are just part of the family! This week we all talked about J going on a mission and good stuff like that. J was nervous but excited for his baptism, and it was exciting to help him feel ready. The ward has been great helping us with Juan, and we have a lot of good people who are friends with him and ready to help him from the beginning of this exciting journey. The baptism yesterday was wonderful, and he said he felt a lot of peace and calmness. Another soul who gets the chance to fight for eternal life! So cool. Please pray for him that he will find strength through the start here so he can keep going forever. We love him and his family. Hopefully he will baptize J in a couple years. :) He will be/is a great addition to the ward.
On Thursday, like I said, I went on exchange to Goldenrod (an English area) with Sister Kirkham!!!!!!!!!! Yes, the same Sister Kirkham that was formerly known as Katie, my BYU Admissions coworker! It was so fun to work with her as a missionary. It was cool too because we knocked into a lady who only spoke a tiny bit of English, but I started talking to her in Spanish and we went into her house and taught a lesson! She is excited to have the Spanish Elders teach her. It was so cool to just be in the right place at the right time. That is why I know Spanish - so we can offer the blessings of the Lord to anyone, anywhere. :) It is such a useful tool to have in your pocket. :) I never could have learned without the Lord! It is so funny that I used to think I just wasn't cut out for learning languages. It was a weakness. The Lord makes weaknesses strong when we use them for Him! I am a witness of that.
On the said exchange, we ate dinner with one of my favorite people, Sister B. I learned several lessons from this dinner. Let's talk about them! Sister Benamor is a member of the Goldenrod ward, which attends the same chapel as Valencia does. I met Sister B my first week in the library, and I asked for her name so I could remember it. Ever since, I have said hello and we have talked and become friends. Then we ended up having dinner with her the one day I was in Goldenrod! I had kind of had a migraine and wasn't feeling well when our appointment came, and she was more than happy to give me a cool cloth and sit me in the breeze by the door and tell me I didn't have to sit and look at the food when I felt so nauseous. That was such a blessing that I really needed. I was so grateful that I had made the effort to be Sister B's friend before. Then, in my time of need, I had a support and strength that I needed! So lesson #1 - be friends with everyone. Lesson #2 - Sister B was just baptized in January. After dinner, she shared a little of her conversion story with us. It was one of the most beautiful testimonies I have ever heard. It was so real. More or less, she said, "Before I was baptized, I only cared about myself. I only did things for me. I demanded things. I didn't care about other people, and I didn't care when I did wrong things. Now, everything is different. I think about others. I am independent. I am learning to control myself and be better. I care when I do wrong things - and that is huge! I ask Heavenly Father for strength to keep being better. And people notice." I feel the Spirit so much thinking about that testimony. The Gospel of Jesus Christ changes us. This Sister changed, so much. I am grateful to be a part of such a hopeful Change. That the big Change that can come upon all of us is through that beautiful Atonement that we focused on not too long ago. We fail, and that's ok. He just wants us to try again. I love that.
Here is a little "Life Lesson from Sister Allred's Mission Book" that I was thinking about this morning. One of the things I have learned is how to do things I don't want to do. Before, I liked to do just about everything I did because that is how I am (does that make sense?). I really enjoyed doing what I was doing most of the time. Now, I don't necessarily enjoy everything I do (what, did you really think Kara Allred would ever enjoy getting up at
6:30 a.m.?). I get sick and tired, and then I don't want to do anything! I get discouraged and depressed, and then all I want to do is go to bed or listen to music. As a missionary, the last thing we ever do is nothing/sleep/listen to music!! We work. All the time. And so I grit my teeth and I work! I grit my teeth and I get out of bed! You don't always have to love everything you do as a missionary, but you do have to do it. What a great life lesson. I won't always love everything. I can train myself to love things, but there are going to be times where I just don't want to do it! And do you know what I will do? I will grit my teeth and do it anyway. If it is getting up at
3:00 am to take care of a sick kid, if it is preparing a Relief-Society lesson after a crazy week, if it is disciplining a wayward child, I will do it even if I don't want to. And the Lord blesses us for that. We look back on it and are grateful that we trusted in the Lord. And eventually, we come to love the things, I would suppose! I am learning to be happy even when I am stressed, tired, and discouraged. That is something priceless.
I love you all a lot!! Thanks for everything you do for me! I am so grateful to have such a wonderful family. Keep being so awesome!
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