I Love You a Million Waffle Irons! - Aug 26

Hiii Mom!
Oh my goodness that was a heart dropper! Oh I'm so sorry for the Hoyt family. That must be incredibly hard and unexpected.. and Dorothea.. that poor woman, that must have been absolutely traumatizing. They are for sure in my prayers.

Nice to know that things are good and just normal in Utah! I love those crazy boys. I have tattled and told my comps they used to call me p*******n when we were kids... well... at least until i left on my mission and they've been kind enough to pause while I wear the name "sister"!

NO NOT ANOTHER CAT

I bet the weather in Utah is beautiful right now! I love this time of the year there. Fall is just the best. It's super gorgeous here right now and I love it. I decided back in February I'd had enough with the tights and I was boycotting them the rest of my mission! I'm pretty sure I can hold out through November but according to the old German ladies, I may not have kids because of it! 'Ill take my chances💁‍♀️

Have you gone into nature at all in Utah? Or what other things have you done? Take advantage of being outside as mich as you cn before it starts getting cold!

Are you flying home?

I'm glad you got a little bit of time with the girls! Pedicures and a movie (with E & B) are always a good idea! Any good movies come out lately? I'm excited to have sisters. Good thing I"ve been practicing for the last 15 months and I'm really used to it by now! If anything, I'm more comfortable with them. I'm excited to meet Brianne, I think we will get along really well.

I've learned a very valuable lesson here, and I think its applicable. Back in my first area, Zwickau, we visited a less active lady named Schw. K******. Her family was very average, and all of the generations of her family lived in the same complex. I mean that she lived on the first floor apartment, parents on 2nd floor and grandparents on 3rd. She told us how she got in a fight with her grandparents and just does not like them because of it. They live in the same house, and barely talk to each other!!

I guess that's a somewhat common storry, yes, I know people fight, but there is something that bothered me. That is that I had no idea what to say to her. I left Zwickau kind of feeling like I didn't and couldn't help her because I only knew that the gospel makes families really happy. But what about when they arent, and especially when the rest of her family arent members?

I finally came across the answer a couple of weeks ago. It's really simple, but this time it actually clicked. We HAVE to use Christ's Atonement. We have to learn how to be humble and forgive. Forgiving is definitely at times harder than asking for forgiveness. Satan wants us to be bitter and mad. Those thoughts don't at all come from God! He doesnt care at all who is right and who is wrong if it means there are hard feelings. He asks us to love one another. Period.

So I wish I would have understood that when I met with this lady. I could have shared that asking God for strength and understanding Christ's atonement would help her do her part and forgive. She just needed to do her part and it would fall it.

This last week, I've focused a lot on trying to repent andd apologize quickly. I found out I don't become perfect because I'm a missionary and don't do anything wrong. HAH that's a lie. I make mistakes, I say the wrong thing someetimes, I get annoyed or my feelings hurt. It happens. Yes, less, but it happens. So this week I really tried to drive thoughts out quickly and apologize quickly and sincerely to others. It's been absolutely soul changing! It makes me happier. Not because I didn't make a mistake, but because I did and I learned how to make things right! It's really cool. And so that will honestly be the only thing that will help. Both need to realize it doesn't matter and just apologize forgive. There's no need for prolonged fighting. Hopefully things get better.

I'm excited for this wedding! I can't believe it will come up so fast! Can you keep me well updated on what's happening? Like where they will get sealed and where we will have receptions? What types of things are you planning right now? I'm excited, I hope you aren't stressed or anything. Actually you are probably on cloud 9 hahah never mind. [Actually, there is no wedding. This was a misunderstanding that can happen through emailing each other just once in a week and not being able to correct it until the following week. When it happens, everyone will know! -MOM]

Yeah you're right. Satan 0, Me 527351. I had a really cool comp study with Sister Barker and we had the coolest talk of how powerful the adversary is. All good things come from God, and all bad things come from Satan. Every fear, anxiety, doubt, whatever it is. I often think or feel I'm not a good enough missionary or whatever whatever and I just found it so powerful this week when I had those thoughts to immediately recognize them as from Satan. They suddenly had no power over me. I really felt powerful against my thoughts. It's amazing.

You're right about the stacking picture! We actually were going to do it this week, but we ran out of time. We will definitely do it this transfer! We have some young missionaries in our district this time. Sister Barker and I are going to look like old grandmas!

I actually just chatted with Paul over the past 2 weeks! He's good, they are good, it will probably work out between them :) That's super cute. And yes, Brittney answered a few weeks ago, that was really cool! It was short and sweet and totally good.. love her. Rachel is still going strong and emails me more than basically everyone combined. She deserves a huge flower bouquet and a German dirndl. She's getting surgery on her knee next week, she tore her ACL. Pray for her!

The voice recording was super funny and wonderful. Nice to hear your voice, thank you for sending that :)

Shrimp are so gross yuck.

I love you a million waffle irons! (guess what we bought today ;-)

Love, Sister Ingalls Jr.