BURNT PANCAKES, BLACK MUSH, AND LEARNING THAT LIFE IS GOOD

Shumway Familia!

Oh man ... so where do I even start this week? Let me just say ... IT HAS BEEN NUTS!

Here's the Gee Whiz Facts of the week:

1. So my comp and I have become quite the fans of making pancakes. It reminds us of good ' ole America! But the sad part it is that for some reason we burn every single one of them. No joke. Every single one of them! We even asked for a new pan to cook on to see if that would change it. Nope ... they still burn. And the saddest part is as I am writing this it that doesn't even sound funny... hahaha

2. WHAT THE MANGO? Okay ... so my comp and I knocked on the door of a cute family this week. They invited us in and we started teaching them a lesson. For some reason we started talking about mangoes and she asked us if we had tried some type of popular mango thing. I thought to myself, "Well, it has the name of mango in it ... SO WHY NOT?" She went to go grab us some and came back with a big black mush in a cup. First, it freaked us out that it was black and we couldn't find the mango part. Let's just say we ended up not eating it. I need to learn more Spanish ...

3. My clothes have started ripping. The almost one year worth of wearing my clothes on my mission is catching up to me! But every shirt and every skirt have been full of a lot of memories ... so I can't even throw them away. Hahaha ... but the one year of wearing them has been worth every minute!

4. We have been prepping for Elder Bednar visiting because he comes this week to our mission! WOOT WOOT!!!

5. We went the extra mile this last Sunday and went to pick up three families for church. THREE FAMILIES!!! And the sad part is none of them could come. But maybe next week, right?! It always helps to be positive.

We have just been going and going this week. The best part is coming home at night tired. You feel like you did your best and then you prep for the next day! Man the mission is the best and every day is worth it!!! The only bad part is I think it is catching up to me and I am getting a little cold.

So we were supposed to have a baptism this last week with our investigator Aniy. We are still teaching her but her mom has had health problems lately so it has been hard to find her in her house. So we ended up changing her baptismal date to 20 de Septiembre. She is reading her Book of Mormon and we actually ended up teaching her son and passing him on as a reference to the sisters that live in his area. He has a lot of interest and maybe we can end up converting the whole family! Anything is possible right?

Leandro is doing great! He is still set on getting baptized the 5 of September. And they have a goal to get married in Octubre. I should be here for both of those dates! He comes to church, reads his Book of Mormon, is doing EVERYTHING he needs to right now, and just has a glow about him. And this week I just realized how grateful I am for where he is at. He has completely changed and that is what makes the mission worth it! He is just incredible.

Many of the new investigators that we have found don't really have interest anymore. Every week I feel like I have mentioned a new person we found and then after a week they lose interest. That can be a huge bummer when they don't want to listen anymore. And one day this week everything just seemed to happen a bunch and everything seemed to go wrong. We got rejected in every one of our appointments. Definitely wasn't the best day for us and finally we just decided to sit down and talk things through. We decided we need to change our attitude. We went from being super bummed to being more positive and missionaries with MORE FAITH. And you know what, after we changed our attitude, everything changed. We went to knock doors and many of the people were INCREDIBLY willing to listen to us. We found great contacts and we just started seeing miracles. Our official new phrase now is: LIFE IS GOOD. It makes the difference when you are more positive!!!

And when the hard times come ... and they do ... we say that phrase and try to change our attitude. It sure makes a difference.

We even found a new investigator named Monica. It was one of the doors we knocked and an older lady answered the door. She invited us in and said, "Uno momento" and went to grab her niece. We didn't understand why she did this ... but when her niece came in we shared a message with her, got to know her a little bit, and found out that she needed us in this very moment. She ended the lesson by telling us just that. It was a miracle. She told us it was like a wake up call for her and her family and she would love to hear more. She asked us when we could come back and we have our next appointment tomorrow.

It hasn't been the most perfect week, but hey ... we sure learned a lot. And that is what the mission is for. It´s our chance to learn and grow!

The lesson I learned this week is LIFE IS GOOD. And our attitude makes all the difference. It doesn't matter the situation, as long as we show more faith and are happier with where we are at, everything gets better.

I know that our Heavenly Father looks out for us. I know that he has a perfect plan and he is fighting to help and strengthen us as his imperfect sons and daughters. He loves us ... I KNOW IT! I am so thankful for my Heavenly Father and I am also thankful for the power of prayer.

The mission is just the best. It definitely is not easy and is full of hard times. But ... there are so many more happier times that it makes it all worth it!

Keep on keeping on this week. Do what is right. And ... BE POSITIVE!!! Your whole world changes when you are.

Love you all so stinking much! Keep being incredible!

XOXO, Hermana Shumway

I love it here ... wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world right now