Letter #57

Hey Family!!!!! -official and adopted :)

This week has been ugh....well... interesting and challenging....testimony building....are those all good words...OK?

Pretty much all of our golden appointments fell through this week with our golden investigators. :( But this is what I think is happening. I told (those of you that know me well, know that I always tell god my plans and thinking patterns. He is my father, right, he knew what he was getting into when he sent me here :) I tell him my plan and then he tells me how he likes it.) So heavenly Father and I chatted and I told him my whole thinking pattern... this is what I came up with:
We worked hard to set up how we thought everything would work good, and then Heavenly Father said, "Oh, nice, good work now let me come and help you a little." So I truly feel and have faith that God is working in his time table now....when life throws you junk than you can find the treasure you wouldn't have found before, because you were looking for something else. So I'm excited and praying A LOT!!! PRAYING A LOT! Did I mention that! :)

Holland and her mom (who hadn't been to church regularly for 20 years) and dad came to church Sunday! He left before priesthood started and I went out to their car and said, "hey, didn't see you in priesthood man"....he laughed and said, "Really you didn't see me in the back...behind the curtains...." I stared at him with my "don't mess with me man" face. He laughed and said "yeah, yeah" I know.... but Holland went all 3 hours and sat by her mom at the beginning of RS and her mom squeezed her hand, because she was happy to be there. Holland is all set for 11Am baptism this Saturday! It’s going to be great! Cain her brother got work changed so he won’t have to work till 4pm on Sundays. So he'll be at church too. And then Lexi her older sister, we need to work on her now. Slowly but surely with LOTS of LOVE!!! We are going to start FHE in their home after Holland's baptism to help their family with their goal of being sealed in the temple!!! :D MOST AMAZING THINGS IN THE WORLD!!!

Curtis’s aunt wants him to wait. So he won’t be baptized on the 7th. But it will happen, he's crushed about it, but Aunt said she wants to make sure he is going to stick with it and wants to see more love from him towards her. So our lesson yesterday was good. he didn't come to church because of baseball, and he said "feel really bad, like I've done something wrong," I said "well that's how your supposed to feel, because Heavenly Father wants you at church to strengthen and renew your promises you will make when you’re baptized." It was really a great lesson!

We are catching up and re-contacting new people each day, and part member families. I'm just praying that I can be of good use to Heavenly Father here, it’s incredible, and that's why we need to give our A game and ask god for help.

A really neat thing I learned this week is this: "We are what we want"....it's hard to explain, but for me, we shouldn't have to be told how amazing we are or what we can and cannot do to be great by anyone....we should figure out what it is that we truly want.....I want a happy life, family, schooling, I want to be a fitness instructor, I want to be a POWERFUL missionary and a force for good were ever I go...etc...Well if I wake up in the morning and tell myself. "I'm a looser....I'm not special...so and so's Patriarchal blessing says these great things about her or him mine doesn't say that and so I'm a nobody...."

Well..... then that's just about all you'll ever be.....I had a hard week, and Satan likes to get us on our hard days I've experience (darn him) he likes us to tear ourselves down so our future looks bleak and grim, when in reality we have the AGENCY to CHOOSE! We might not be able to choose how we feel, but we will be able to choose how we ACT and what we DO when we feel certain ways. I hope this makes sense. I'm excited because this is a new concept that recently helped me realize that "I am what I say I am"....and what I want, I'll eventually become in eternity".... thanks Katie for that letter.

Thank you for writing me and sending me talks that uplifts and helps me think and refine who I am out here in Texas! I love it here. I wouldn't trade this journey I'm on for anything in the WHOLE WORLD!!! NO WAY!!! NO HOW....it's incredible how God works to send me to others and to send others to me.... missionary work is the BEST work in the ENTIRE UNIVERSE!!! I've never been more rebuked and happy in my whole life!!

I love you all from here to Heaven

Sister Judkins