Week 11 (5/14/18): "We're dressing more and more like Lamanites every day."

This week was a week of firsts. I went to a funeral for the first time (I'm almost 20 and I'd never been to a funeral. I've been very blessed to have very few deaths of people I know. But it was a little awkward because I'd never met the woman whose funeral it was.) I painted a ceiling for the first time. Someone said, "Sister, you're supposed to paint the walls, not yourself!" Getting paint out of hair is a pain. 

And as always, the tender mercies. The gift of tongues is real. We met this amazing Hispanic woman while tracting, and she was fairly receptive to our message. The tender mercy was that I was actually able to speak Spanish fairly well, so she could understand me just fine, and we even came back the next day to bring her a Book of Mormon. And she spoke so fast. I had such a hard time keeping up. But I understood the important things. It's been amazing to see that when I need to use my Spanish, it just flows, but when I'm not talking to someone who actually needs me to speak Spanish, I really have to focus on it. The gift of tongues is real! 

This next one may seem fairly small, but it was huge to me. This week, we went over to the house of someone in the ward with our recent convert, Stefania, so she could Skype her family in China to get some information about her grandparents and great-grandparents so she could try to work on family history so she could take some family names to the temple this upcoming weekend. First of all, the member paid for the Skype call, all 35 cents of it, though she expected it to cost more. But while Stefania is talking to her grandparents, Sister McDonald, the member, gave us each a Ghiradelli chocolate square. It was the Intensely Dark Sea Salt Soiree variety. And there was no way she could have known that just a couple nights before, I'd been having a really hard time and I'd just wanted some decent dark chocolate with almonds, since that is my mom's favorite, so that is what we always had around. And then not two days later, Sister McDonald hands me almost exactly what I wanted, good chocolate with almonds (and my mom loves sea salt chocolate too, so she really would have loved it). And there is no way that she could have known that that was exactly what I needed to tell me that God was aware of me. I am so grateful for the tender mercies God gives me. 

And of course, Skyping with my family was amazing. It was so good to see their faces and hear their voices. And the baby gerbils were cute. 

I get to go to the temple twice this upcoming week, once with my zone and once with our ward, because Stefania is going to the temple!!! But I'm so excited to be in the House of the Lord again!

Love you tons!!!

Sister Cate

Painting is messy. 

My mom loves me. She picked all the purple jellybeans out for me. And she remembered the barrettes I'd wanted months ago.