Monday, August 7, 2017

Liebe grüße, Sister Macey Ingalls (Your fav daughter) -- August 6

MOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM 
Oh my gosh, my companion and I just DIED laughing over your email this week! Thank you for sending me that story, that made me laugh and scream over and over again!!!

I'm glad your week was so joyful! You got so much done around the house, that's awesome. I loved hearing about the service that you were rendering to a family at church. That really warms my heart, because that is so different from German wards. They are very friendly, but everyone is family so everyone just kind of treats their callings as a title, not actually a calling to action. But it goes to show that serving others will bring you the greatest joy! That is why I'm so happy and won't go home without a fight! (I have to include that part in every email, sorry!) [I have a feeling that she will eventually miss us enough to come home! At least, I hope so!] MOM

Speaking of packages, I sent a letter to you last Monday along with a package to the Young Women in our ward. It's just an envelope with a bunch of response letters to all of the girls, I really hope they get that, I worked hard on those! It was fun to write those and think about things that I would have wanted to hear as a Young Women from a missionary. I'm so happy that they have the leadership that they do, they are really in good hands. Sister Moore, Sister Hafner, Sister Johnson, Sister Buchanan and all of the other ladies that previously helped me literally changed my life. I love the Young Women program, and I hope that someday I can give back to it. It's basically unheard of here to have mutual every week, if at all. We don't have a program in our ward here right now, all of the older kids get adult callings! I love the idea that girls at such a pivotal age have the chance to spend their Wednesday nights doing something good. Give those rocking ladies a hug for me, they mean more to me than they will ever realize!

That was a beautiful thought you gave, it actually almost brought me to tears. As a missionary who really wants my investigators to just give prayer a chance, I love to hear that you have such deep and meaningful prayers. Prayer will get us through the hardest of times. When we feel opposition- pray! When we feel abandoned by God- pray! Throughout any circumstance we can pray, and I know that Heavenly Father will give us peace and comfort within. That's exactly how the Book of Mormon works. People are doing just fine and think they don't need God, things go bad and they're like OH NO what do we do??!?!? Then the prophet rolls his eyes and says, in what I imagine is an annoyed tone of voice, "Here's a suggestion- pray! Ask for help! Realize that God can help you when you actually acknowledge His existence!" Then the people pray and weep, and suddenly things are good again! And they are like, "Oh, wow! God does help us! I love Him and I will praise Him forever!" Then we often go on our way and forget again. Ugh!

I really liked your quote, “Why can’t we resist the urge to second-guess and evaluate others? Sometimes I wonder if the final judgment will be a breeze compared to what we put each other through here on earth.” Another thing to think of is how hard we are on ourselves. It's difficult not to be hard on yourself. Everyone always says to not be hard on yourself and accept that you're going to make mistakes, but I don't think that's entirely true. It's stress that drives people to do things. When we just accept how we are and say it's okay, then we aren't progressing. So I think every missionary or even every person in general needs to find their own balance between lazy and stressed, with just enough pressure to keep you motivated and progressing!

That eating advice is awesome! Thank you! I actually did that yesterday, there was so much food that I just made sure to take as much time as the others to finish my normal size portion of food! Also, we ran just about every day last week, and that felt great! It's hard for Sis. Alton to want to get up (I get it, she's tired and nearing the end of her mission!), but we did and it was always worth it. I weighed myself yesterday night and I weigh exactly as much as I did when I left home! Not bad, I expected the worst!

With my next transfer, I will make sure that we get our full 2 hours to email. One of our computers is broken right now, so I only have like about an hour today.

The rest of my week was awesome! Funny story, we were waiting at the bus stop and this drunk older guy was walking toward us. I knew he was going to say something about us being two cute girls or whatever, so instead I struck up a conversation with him about his grocery items he just bought- tomatoes and spaghetti eis (ice cream shaped like spaghetti- that would probably be your favorite thing ever!) He insisted that we take them, and after awhile we finally gave in and took it. We started talking about God and invited him to church. He definitely would not remember this conversation in 20 minutes, so we gave him a bunch of cards. I just imagined him sobering up that night and being like, "where did my ice cream go, and what is the card I have about the Mormons?!" haha. Then, as we were eating our ice cream, this other drunk guy calls at us from his apartment balcony, like 4 stories up. He serenaded us with his saxophone, then his guitar, then his voice. It was a very interesting 15 minutes, and we were dying laughing the whole night. Don't worry though, we were completely safe! ;)

Ice cream from a very nice (drunk) dude
P.S. Facebook is going to be an awesome tool. It opens up the windows for us to reach so many more people! I'm very excited to use it. I've found out fast though that it will take a lot of discipline not to look at it too much. I could spend hours scrolling through my news feed and going down memory lane with my old posts and pictures, remembering all of the really happy times I've had with my family and friends. It makes me miss home a lot. I purposely wanted to get away from this social media stuff, but I know that if I use it right, it will be a huge blessing. 

I love you a million gallons of spaghetti eis! I also love you a million trips to Berlin (I should also include non food related things!)
Liebe grüße,
Sister Macey Ingalls (Your fav daughter)

No comments:

Post a Comment