Jessica's Mission Blog: "one week of gluten free *check* " (February 23, 2016)

THANKS TO EVERYONE FOR THE BIRTHDAY WISHES

in the argentine ortho

im so happy to hear from you all! love you all and miss you all so much!

so first, sorry for not being able to write a letter last week. just in the mission life of hna sanders its normal for my days to be crazy haha well last monday in the morning my permanent retainer broke while eating an apple! so we had to rush to san nicolas early to get into an ortho so i didnt have much time to email! later that night the tummy doctor told me that im basically celiac so now we have to do more studies so thats what is going on in the life of me now. haha

oh and i got transferred! i had to say goodbye to hna lopez! im so happy i was able to finish her training! we became super good friends these past few weeks! im going to miss her alot! and now im in my last area! its called parque urquiza. its in downtown rosario so its the first time ill be in a city city in my mission! ive always had simple areas super safe and calm but its so exciting to be in a big city! so different so ill definitely be able to learn A TON. im with an hermana named hna ritchie! shes from michigan. im finishing training her so thats fun! i love training! she speaks spanish super well so thats AWESOME! im super excited to be in this area! itll be my first ward! like real ward haha 120 people come to church and all the callings are filled so im excited for sunday!

i dont have too much to write for this week because i just started here but in terms of the people from ramallo all the new people we found are progressing! hna lopez and her new companion should defitnitely be able to see some success there! im going to miss it! it was a beautiful area and the pension was so big and pretty! haha the apartment here is nice too but it doesnt have windows, there are bats in the walls, and we shower with a bucket...ill send a pic next week. hahaha but my bed and pillow are super comfy!!

its super hard to find new people to teach here because no one really lives here haha but last night we were contacting and we spoke to a chica, she was our age and in the end she gave us her direction to visit her! well we looked up the street and it doesnt exist! haha but it doesnt matter there are other people we will find to teach!

so for my spiritual thought...my last sunday in ramallo was great! before church started pte gianeli (the branch pres) invited us into his office. he thanked me for my work there saying how grateful he was. maybe i wasnt able to see much success but he told me i helped change the attitude of the branch and the reactivating a family was very important. he then asked me to give a 15 min talk hahahahaha so i spoke about endure to the end.

the most important part of the gospel of jesus christ is endure to the end. this means we keep our covenants and move forward always with faith, repenting, and being guided by the holy spirit. i shared 2 tim 2:3 "thou, therefore, endure hardness as a good soldier of jesus christ" this is one of my favorites. enduring, or persevering to the end means we will face trials and tests, temptations of every kind in our lives but we endure them. we are attacked every day but as long as we stay strong in the faith, keeping the commandments, honoring our covenants and moving forward, we will make it to the end when we will return to the presence of our loving heavenly father.

the next email will be more detailed becuase ill have more to write! but thats about it for today. thank you for all your prayers. i love you all so much!!

xoxoxo

hna sanders