Week # 17 - Love is a Circle!

Hello All!  

This week was fantastic. As I have been closing things off with Sis McAfee, she is transferring and I'm getting greenie broken, it was amazed me with how much I truly have come to just love her. She is such a different personality and has so much spunk and fire. It doesn't take much to get her going into "black mode" where she starts talking like some ghetto black person for Kearns, Utah (hometown) and this little 5'3 German girl starts seriously getting in your face with laughter and jokes about how she's gonna beat me up....it's pretty comical. It always makes me laugh! She still treats me like her little girl and was straight up feeding me the other day at the Christmas mtg we had as a mission. Hahaha, she couldn't finish her food so she was shoving it down my throat! Oh the joys of being a greenie :)  I have never been more amazed with how much the Lord can open a person's eyes to see someone so amazing. She is strong, powerfully happy and has taught me so much. I've been trying hard to see why she was my trainer. Let's just say...she helped me to be so humble. Now the Lord can use me. I was told that pride would be the hardest thing for me to overcome on my mission and obviously...Heavenly Father is omnipotent. He knew. She also helped me to be happy. I took everything so seriously and was making it missionary WORK instead of missionary FUN. She helped me see past that. I'm now ready to take over the area and work my tail feathers off! 

Funny story #2: Sister Lake GOT FLEAS! We went over to our recent converts home to share a message with them and to hold their interview for their baptism. I was playing with their kitten when the daughter told me that she had fleas! Awesome. I had always played with the kitten whenever we went there and kept waking up with these little bites all over my body. Well SURPRISE! I had fleas. Awesome. We are getting everything worked out to de-flea me...I will never touch a cat again. I KNEW they were of the devil.

I have been studying a lot about Matt 22 in the Bible and in 3 Nephi, about how the 2 great commandments are to first love the Lord and then love your neighbor. My sister gave me this challenge to read it and discover why those are the first two great commandments. WOW. President! My eyes were completely opened. I realized that everything we do here on this earth should first guide us toward loving our Father in Heaven because through loving Him we will come to love ourselves. We will see ourselves how He sees us and be able to achieve our purpose on this earth , "to become perfect even as Christ!" We will then REALIZE our amazing potential and have no more desire to do evil. We will realize how debasing Satan is to us and what we can become. THEN we will have so many desires to reach out and to help another. The 2nd great commandment. We will want to help lift them and help them realize how to love the Lord as well so that they can receive all that we can. It's AMAZING! By our loving God and then loving our neighbor we will be able to love ourselves even more and become EVEN BETTER. IT'S A CIRCLE! Basically, Heavenly Father is a god of order. I like Him :)  

MIRACLE: Ashley and Angel got married and BAPTIZED! Everything went wrong on Sunday. EVERYTHING. They were almost an hour late. (No worries, been to church 6 + times) and were able to learn so much. Then the baptism happened and the room was PACKED. Our ward just loves them. They were both so emotional; now their other 2 kids wish to be baptized as well :)  

SHOUT OUT TO CHEWIE AND BRAD!

 

Thank you SO much for your sweet gift of the Holy Family. I love it. Truly. It sits on my desk and reminds me every single day the reason for why I'm out here on my mission. I may even have it out all year round :) It reminds me that my extended family is still real, it has become a little weird to talk about the family because I'm not there with you for Christmas. It's almost surreal! But your gift made Dec 25 a little bit more of Christmas for me, Thank you :) 

I LOVE YOU ALL!

Hna Lake