Last night I went to the ice cream shop with my funny uncle Jaret and his friend Morgan.
There was a girl paying for her ice cream looking all in her purse for a quarter to finish paying. She couldn’t find one.
So I gave her a quarter.
She said thanks so much and kept looking in her purse.
Then she pulled out this little star and gave it to me and said ,”here,” and walked away.
I’m in Ojai, CA for a while working on some body-mind-spirit progress. :)
A lovely journey in a beautiful place with such good peoples.
I’m learning lots. That’s importantíssimo.
I’m trying to make the best use of 24 hours each day.
I’m grateful to be here.
Joyce and I went to the Pickett’s sweet house for lunch today!
It was perfectly delightful,
and was made complete with Sister Pickett’s cookies.
President and Sister Pickett are simply wonderful (and I love their home!).
Joyce Buddy is wonderfully wonderful too.
I’m so happy I’ll be here in Utah for her and Spencer’s wedding!
I love happy reunions with those I love.
PS. Over a year ago we were all in Vitória, Brazil making Mexican food!
And yes, still sporting the parrot earrings.
Music and the Spoken Word in the conference center!
I loved it muchly. I can’t wait to go back for general conference in october!
At Temple Square I saw two sisters I know from byuh. :)
We went up to the statue of Christ.
Christ is a title. It means “annointed one.”
I relearned that today as I visited with my uncle Mark and browsed through his scriptures.
I do love visits.
Visited my grandma’s neighbor today too, who is the mother of Lloyd Newell! :)
And he is the Music and the Spoken word man. I met him and his family.
So many lovely peoples.
He shared with me a quote, which comes from the prophet Lorenzo Snow:
“As man now is, God once was; as God is now man may be.”
And then I got to see my dear friend Jenny from home(r) and meet her husband and see her pregnant belly! Twas lovely catching up on two years of happenings.
It’s super hot here. Thank goodness for the air conditioning. Obrigada.
I am really loving being here in Ojai, CA.
My uncle Jaret leaves us fresh fruits at the door.
Grandad picks fresh roses for us.
And I read scriptures with Scott and Stacy at night.
Yes. I think I’ll be spending the fall here.
Bom dia!!! Do you realize what a blessed day today is? After all, it’s TIE DYE FRIDAY!!!! :D
I got a tie dye kit from my aunt Connie yesterday and I am soooo happy about it! Oh she just makes my week! So does tie dye! During laundry time this morning, my district and I tie dyed! Oh happy day. I miss tie dying, especially with my darling niece Natalie. But oh it was so so good and I can wait to unveil our shirts. One elder actually did a tie, another dyed an old button up shirt, and I dyed some white tights too. We’ll see how those turn out. :) But it was so fantastico.
I’m loving the MTC life. Learning so so much and I looooove these people here, especially my companion, the ten elders in my district, and the other Brazil bound sisters. As well as the new three sisters in our room! The four hermanas we had the first six weeks are now in Argentina, and on Wednesday new missionaries came.
Speaking of which, we got to host for the new missionaries and show them around. Twas fantastic! Especially since I got to sit outside in the lovely sunshine with the beautiful leaves and things.
And… one sister got her visa this week! But that’s the only one that came, a bunch more missionaries got their temporary reassignments this week. I guess the US doesn’t give Brazilians visa very easily, so they’re doing the same thing for us. I wonder when I’ll get there. My time here in Utah is done in 2.5 weeks. Crazy!
Portuguese is going well.I love it oh so much! I’ve still got so so much to learn of it though. But it’s incredible to believe how much I can speak after only studying for 6 weeks. Truly blessed we are.
I’m learning so much these days. It’s excellent. We have such good speakers and such good lessons and my study time is soooo wonderful.
For Relief Society we had MAry N. Cook of the Young Womens General Presidency come. She spoke to us sisters on the enabling power of the atonement. How Christ suffered for all of our sins, all of our pains, sufferings, temptaions, afflictions, all feelings of every kind. Every feeling, mental, physical, or emotional, Christ has felt. And he went through that not only to pay for our sins and redeem us, but to comfort us. He knows how we feel, because He has felt the same way, because He loves us.
And because Jesus has suffered for all of our sins, we need to use the atonement and repent. We can be forgiven of every sin and we must be. No unclean thing can dwell in the kingdom of God and we must be made clean. Repent and return to Christ.
I also learned more about Prayer this week. We are children of a loving Heavenly Father. He loves us and wants to bless our lives. But we must pray to Him. We are commanded to pray always and if we do, our Heavenly Father will bless us. But we need to pray in faith, knowing that God will answer our prayers. And we too must become to answer to our own prayers and to others prayers. We can’t just give God a shopping list of blessings we’d like, we have to work for them.
When we obey the commandments of God and do as Christ would, we are blessed immensely. We are also blessed with happiness, alegria. Who wants more joy in their lives? I think everyone does. So keep the commandments, all of them, and come unto Christ. And in order to keep the commandments, we must know what they are. AKA study the scriptures and words of the Lord and His prophets.
I love our prophet. And there’s rumor going around that he might come to the MTC on Tuesday for devotional or maybe for Thanksgiving. If not President Monson, then I’m sure another apostle will come. We didn’t have a 5th apostle at our devotional on Tuesday, it was given by Elder Pearson, a memebr of the first quorum of the seventy. And it was oh so wonderful. I learned lots lotslots.
He talked about being a disciple of Jesus Christ. As a missionary, I wear the name of Jesus Cristo on my name tag every single day. I am recognized as a representative of Jesus Christ and his restored gospel. I need to work more on giving up myself and finding the Lord, forgetting about who I was before the mission and find myself in the service of Jesus Christ. For when we lose ourselves for His sake, we find ourselves. I’m Sister Owens now. It’s so wonderful. I love it. I have never been so surrounded by the Spirit all day every day. I looooove being a sister missionary! :D
"What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family." -Mother Theresa