A huge shout out to the Round Rock High School football team and my "little" brother Matthew for beating Westlake! Awesome! I wore the RRHS homecoming shirt Mom sent me as much as I could this weekend to represent! Good luck this week! I've been bragging to the other 2 Texans in my district that my team is top 20 in the state of Texas! haha!
Also a shout out to Corner Bakery Cafe for hooking me up with those cookies and the sweet notes! Everyone loved them! Especially monster cookies of course! haha :) I've had crazy dreams about going back there the last 2 nights! In both dreams I didn't know how to do anything anymore! :)
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| SNOW! |
Anyways, now to the funny and spiritual. I have 2 of each this week! It was a great week ....except for the snow on Thursday! I HATE SNOW. So much.
First the funny. One morning we were at breakfast and the MTC president and his wife were sitting at a table near us. President Nally looked over at us and asked where we were going. So we said Taiwan Taipei. Then I thought I heard him say, "say hello to the Taiwanese!" so I responded, "Oh we will!" then Sister Kirkham looked at me like I was crazy! Then she said, "Ni hao!' to him, looked at me and said, "He said say hello IN Taiwanese, what were you thinking??" so I explained it to her and we could not stop laughing! Apparently, I don't understand when people speak English to me, let alone Chinese!
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| This is the mouse we scared our roommates with! :) |
The second one is even better, because I wasn't the one getting embarrassed this time! Wednesday night Sister Good and Sister Hendricks were in the new district's room right before bedtime. Sister Kirkham and I found this fake mouse with a motion detector on it so whenever it got moved or anything it would start making mouse noises! So we got this genius idea to put it in Sister Good's bed while they weren't here! Sister Kirkham placed it perfectly on the bed just enough under her covers that she couldn't see it at first glance, only if she looked hard. SO CREEPY. So they came back in and about 20 minutes later we start hearing it squeak. It was the funniest thing ever! Both of them freaked out sooo bad! They had no idea where the noise was coming from and it sounded so real! Sister Kirkham and I were on Sis K's bed trying so hard to be good actors and act like we didn't do anything. We're awful! hahaha We were just laughing our heads off but they were so scared they weren't even paying attention to us! It was all so perfect I can't even describe it! We told Sister Good to look under her pillows and blankets, then she found the mouse! She screamed SO LOUD! Then Sister Hendricks freaked out and was on my bed on the other side of the room in about .3 seconds! But the best part was when Sister Good jumped off the top bunk onto the cement floor and went spread eagle and continued to freak out! :D haha We then told them it was fake and we had put it there. They were sooo mad for a few minutes, but now they're laughing about it so it's all good! haha Later when we were laughing, Sister Kirkham decided to do an impression of Sister Good jumping off the top bunk, except when she did it she got a super bad rug burn on her wrist! It sounded painful and she couldn't write in her journal because of it! I kinda saved the day and bought her ice cream from the vending machine to cool it down. haha We have so much fun in our sushe!! (residence) :)
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| These are the sisters in our zone now! The 3 girls on the right are new from this wednesday! They're adorable! :) |
Now for the 2 spiritual stories. On Tuesday night for the devotional Bishop Dean M. Davies, the 2nd counselor in the Presiding Bishopric, came and spoke to us with his cute wife Darla. At the end of his talk he asked if they could sing a duet for us instead of singing the normal closing hymn. They sang "As I Have Loved You" once as a duet then we all joined in as they sang again. It was the cutest thing ever! When they were singing he would look down at her with the sweetest smile. I'm pretty sure there was not a dry eye in the room when they finished. The spirit was so so strong! Seeing their love and adoration for each other helped me feel the Savior's love for me.
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| This is my chinese nametag! These are the only characters I know how to write so don't be too impressed! haha |
The next story is pretty cool too. It's kind of a long story about how it all ended up, but you can go read Sister Kirkham's update on Facebook if you want to read the whole story! I'll spare you. It is kinda her story, but I was there for all of it sooo anyways. Sister Kirkham has been kinda sick with a sore throat/cold thing for about 3 weeks. So we were talking to these other Mandarin Elders who were also sick, and they told her, "Don't hesitate to ask your Elders for a priesthood blessing". We'd thought of that but didn't think to actually do it. So that night she asked Elder Tan to give her a blessing. That was one of the coolest experiences of my mission so far. It was super amazing to hear these 18 year old Elders give her one of their first ever priesthood blessings. Right when they started, the spirit immediately filled the room and I started tearing up even though I wasn't the one getting the blessing! It was a sweet and simple blessing of health and strength, but so beautiful! The next day she improved a lot and she's pretty much better now! We were all so grateful for the priesthood that night!
This week I learned a lot about healing and strength, both physically and spiritually. I didn't feel very good on Thursday either, but not bad enough to get a blessing. So that night and the next morning, I prayed really hard for us to know what we could do to feel better. We kept up on our medicines on Friday and took some time to rest. We felt so much better on Friday and Saturday!
Now the healing on the spiritual/emotional side of things. Satan has pushed on me so hard here. I start feeling like I'm not good enough compared to my perfect companion. He tempts me to feel extra guilty and not worthy to have such a good comp. It is so dumb!! Some days are so hard because of his temptations. Sister Kirkham knows me pretty well now and she can tell when i'm thinking like that. She always helps me sooo much! She encourages me and helps me know that Satan's lying to me. She helps me remember to not compare myself to her and that she's actually not perfect either. I'm so dang grateful that Heavenly Father let me be comps with my long lost best friend. :)
Also, through lots of prayer and scripture reading, I am able to regain confidence and be strengthened. My heart becomes healed from Satan's traps and temptations. I know this is only through the atonement of Christ that we can be spiritually healed and strengthened. I am so so grateful for everything I've learned about the atonement the last 7 weeks! I've gained a personal relationship with Heavenly Father and Christ. I am so grateful for the gospel and the knowledge I have that I can continually improve through Christ's grace. My favorite talk ever is still "His grace is sufficient" by Brad Wilcox. It has helped me a ton through the past couple weeks remember that I don't have to be perfect the first time. I'm always going to make mistakes, but when I humble myself to Christ he will ALWAYS help my weaknesses become strengths. So grateful for the atonement. I've also gained testimonies of the Book of Mormon, prayer, and Joseph Smith. Those tangents will have to wait for another time!
Love you all and I appreciate the prayers and support!
-Sister Oviatt
