December 17 and 24 Letters

December 17
Not Much to Say

We did a whole lot of tracting and contacting former investigators this week. The one bright spot was Mauro now is getting baptized! We had a great lesson and we invited him to be baptized on the 19 of January. He was so excited, and his wife was even more excited. She has been talking about getting sealed to him since we first started teaching them, and so he was excited for that too.

I also had Chic-fil-a for the first time this week. When they heard I had never been, my entire district said we had to go. Then they watched me eat it to see my reaction. I guess it was pretty good, but it is way overhyped. 

We also had to bike all week. We technically share a car with some sisters in the other Palm Bay 1 ward, but they use all the miles every time they have the car, so even when we have it we can't use it. I probably biked 70 miles this week. I got a pretty nice bike, so it wasn't bad. It helps me stay fit I guess.

If any of you are wondering what a typical meal for me would be, here's my normal breakfast and lunch. For breakfast, I either eat Cocoa Pebbles, or I eat a burrito with scrambled eggs, pepper jack cheese, ham, and sriracha. Those burritos are amazing. For lunch I either eat a pb and j and nutella sandwich, which is amazing btw,  or a ham sandwich. I also have some frozen Totinos pizzas that I eat occasionally. I thought I would get sick of that food after a little bit, but I still love my burritos and PB and J's. Maybe in a few months I'll find something else to eat.

The last thing that's pretty interesting is we are teaching a former investigator that is kind of homeless but living out of a hotel right now, and we're teaching his friend who just got out of 17 years in prison last week. They are both reading the Book of Mormon and coming to church though. They are awesome!

Merry Christmas!

December 24
Krismis!

Its Christmas! We had an unusual week. Monday was P Day, Tuesday we biked for 4 hours to a lesson outside of our area, Wednesday was a normal day, Thursday we had district meeting and were gone almost all day getting an oil change and other stuff, Friday we were gone all day at a Christmas devotional, Saturday was another normal day, and yesterday we had a ward Christmas get together and we were visiting members all day. 

We had a lesson with a lady we found named Deborah. She had read the restoration pamphlet we gave her and she read it and said she believed it. She also said she read the entire Book of Mormon. She said she believed everything in the introduction and that Jesus Christ visited the Americas. It was awesome. Nooooobody says they'll read the entire Book of Mormon and nobody keeps commitments, but Deborah is awesome.

The ward I'm in is also amazing. I got about 10 Christmas presents from members at church yesterday. We are very grateful for them. 

On Saturday we got to have a dinner with a member family and 2 other nonmember families. We had a hit dog roast and watched the nativity on a projector. It was really fun and the nonmembers might want to take lessons. The only problem is they are in the other ward's area so we would have to give them to the other missionaries. 

Sorry if this email is a little choppy, I didnt have much time to write it. Good week overall, and I'm excited for Christmas. Merry Christmas ya'll! 

*He's really into making these ties. So we asked him about that on our phone call and apparently they like to hang out at some fabric stores and buy fun fabric. His trainer taught him how to make ties without using a sewing machine. This one is his favorite and apparently a favorite of several other missionaries. So he's going to make them one too.

Not gonna lie

You may think my life revolves around a missionary and school. At least that's what my blog posts will tell you.

Well . . . 

You'd probably be right.

I love my missionary Mondays.

Today I got to spend a good portion of the day emailing back and forth. I don't normally get to do that. And it's a good thing I did.

I sent him a bundt pan via Amazon Prime a month ago. His favorite is our Christmas morning rolls we make, so I figured he could make them there and feel like he's at home a little. Then I sent his Christmas package with a few ingredients to make his rolls, the recipe, and some cash to buy the rest.


Um, did you notice where he said he was going to BAKE the PLASTIC WRAP!!!

That would have been a disaster.

Anyway, there are other things happening besides just Erik and 2nd Grade.

Nate started working at McDonalds. He's working the grill and hasn't had too many burns yet. He's busy hanging out with friends, performing in orchestra concerts, practicing tennis, and running. He's about half way through his hard year of being a junior, and obviously too cool to smile when dressed in his work gear.

Ash was selected to be the student of the month by her English teacher. I made it to the little ceremony but my phone is slowly giving up the ghost and decided to take a breather. So no photos while there. I had to get them at home. She also is very busy with friends . . . like just about every weekend hanging out somewhere.

Alex entered four pictures in  our local newspaper coloring contest and won prizes for two out of the four. It must pay to take your time and do a good job. He also getting ready to start his first season of Junior Jazz. He takes his basketball to school every day to practice and play.

Tyler is busy bringing home some of the bacon from Wells Fargo and planting bushes in December. I know the neighbors think he is crazy. Once that gardening gets in your blood, it's hard to take the time off when the weather warms up in winter.


And I'm getting ready to finish up my classes for licensing. Three more classes. I'm headed in to the craziest four months of my life I'm afraid. Just keep swimming. That light is at the end of the tunnel.

We were also gifted a bouquet of Christmas flowers anonymously. The delivery lady showed up and a card that simply said, "Thinking of you. Merry Christmas." Our family is so good at being Christmas ninjas. I hate it when the tables are turned on me. Whomever it was, we are so grateful and loving their beauty.

BS and the apology letter

I had a funny moment the other day in my class. I was sitting at my table helping two students catch up from being gone for a week while the rest of the class was working on various activities. Another student came over to me and said,"Mrs. Leary, some of the kids over there are writing BS. What does that mean?"

She caught me so off guard I wasn't sure how to answer her. First, my initial thought was why are they writing BS and second, how do they know what BS even means.

And then it hit me. I had changed my Daily 5 check-in form to include Book Shopping where students can exchange their books for other books in our library. To keep it short, they used the initials BS, and since I had just included it that morning, I didn't have time yet to explain to the class what that additional choice was.

I sure had a good chuckle with myself over that one.

And another good  moment came with my difficult student. He made the choice to color all over his desk with crayon which isn't very easy to remove. I gave him some dry towels and told him to go to work. I ended up pulling his desk away from the others. I kept very calm and I continually had to redirect him to his task. And then I finally had to tell him that I was going to let him stay in for recess (he does not like going out at recess and it's about the only thing I have to hold over him), but since he had destroyed his desk, he would need to go outside today.

His desk finally got clean again with the help of some classmates. During one of our rotations, he wrote me an apology letter telling me how sorry he was for coloring on his desk. THAT was out of the blue and very uncharacteristic. I feel like I have a good relationship with him that I can command some authority. But it hasn't been easy. My dad who was a teacher tells me to not let one bad apple ruin the whole bunch. And I say, yes, but didn't the Savior also go after that one.

It hasn't been an easy year, but I know it will be worth it if I keep up my efforts and prayers for this boy.

December 10 Letter about Remembering

This is one of those letters that mom's wait for and hope for. He's only been gone three months but I can already see some tremendous growth in him or maybe it was just growth waiting to be unleashed. I do miss this boy of ours.

This photo shows a missionary wearing a jacket. Could it possibly be cold enough for a jacket??? It was only 89 degrees last week.

He also wasn't too impressed with my dollar store dart board I sent him. I think he should put his thinking skills to use and figure out a way to make it work.

December 10

This week was extremely uneventful. We tracted all week long and got zero new people to teach. We are switching it up this week and are gonna work way more with inactive members. The best part of the week was our lesson with Mauro and we have another lesson with them tonight, yay! We also had zone conference which is always fun. I also wrote a big ol Spititual Spiel that I've been writing all week if you feel like reading it. 

Like last week, we had lots of appointments fall through. That means we have from around 1:30 to 7 every day to do nothing but knock doors. We found zero people though! We were praying and working hard and nothing happened. Some weeks are like that, but you need to give everyone a chance. Even if nothing comes out of it, the important thing is that you talked to everyone you could. 

We had an awesome lesson with Mauro Villamil this week. His wife has an awesome testimony and she kept saying how excited she was for her husband to get baptized and how excited she was to get their family sealed. We will put him on date tonight for sure. They are so splendiferously fantastic.

Zone conference was Tuesday, and it took all day. It's basically meetings for 6 hours straight, like intense seminary all day long. It's fun though because we get fed and we can talk to all the other missionaries. That's about it for the week though. 

Gotta love Facebook and people who post photos for me.

Remember

This Spiritual Spiel is a tribute to my mom😁. She always says that the most important word is remember. This is what she told me in an email a while back, “When we remember our feelings and thoughts and experiences, we are in a better place to strengthen our testimonies and help others who are experiencing similar things.” I love you mom😊. I've been pondering this word all week and wanted to write down my thoughts about it. Fyi, this will probably be really long, so sorry.

A quote by George Santayana says “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Remembering the things we have experienced and the things we have learned is how we grow and it's what makes us who we are. If we don't use past experiences to guide us today, we wont ever grow and we will make the same mistakes over and over. 

Elder Holland gave a great talk at a BYU devotional called "Remember Lot's Wife." Listen to it if you haven't, but in it he gives this statement, “the past is to be learned from but not lived in.” Remember the past and learn from it, but don't long for it. Look for a better future, have faith that as you rely on the Savior’s atonement and always strive to be better, you will prosper and find “peace in this life and eternal salvation in the life to come.” This comes from remembering and learning from the past and applying it to your future. 

Mosiah 4:30 says:

“But this much I can tell you, that if ye do not watch yourselves, and your thoughts, and your words, and your deeds, and observe the commandments of God, and continue in the faith of what ye have heard concerning the coming of our Lord, even unto the end of your lives, ye must perish. And now, O man, remember, and perish not.”

The sacrament prayer, which most of us listen to each week, says “O God, the Eternal Father, we ask thee in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ, to bless and sanctify this bread to the souls of all those who partake of it; that they may eat in remembrance of the body of thy Son, and witness unto thee, O God, the Eternal Father, that they are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son, and always remember him, and keep his commandments which he hath given them, that they may always have his Spirit to be with them. Amen.”

Remember our Savior always, remember to keep his commandments. As we remember the past we learn. When we do wrong, we feel guilt and shame and sorrow, I know I feel terrible. Sometimes as we repent and change and strive to be better we block that out and try to forget. This doesn't help though. We don't want to live in the past, but we need to remember how those things we did made us feel. It will provide protection from sin to remember the way we felt. When temptation comes, if we remember the feelings that have come from sin in the past, it will be easier to resist. I love the story of Alma the Younger. He was a very unrighteous child and fought against the church. He repented and became one of the most valiant servants of the Lord. He didn't forget his early days though.

Alma 36:13-16 says:

“Yea, I did remember all my sins and iniquities, for which I was tormented with the pains of hell; yea, I saw that I had rebelled against my God, and that I had not kept his holy commandments. Yea, and I had murdered many of his children, or rather led them away unto destruction; yea, and in fine so great had been my iniquities, that the very thought of coming into the presence of my God did rack my soul with inexpressible horror. Oh, thought I, that I could be banished and become extinct both soul and body, that I might not be brought to stand in the presence of my God, to be judged of my deeds. And now, for three days and for three nights was I racked, even with the pains of a damned soul.” 

He didn't block it out. He had retained this memory all these years. 

He didn't just remember the bad though, he remembered the good that came from the gospel and the atonement.
Verses 17-21 say:


“And it came to pass that as I was thus racked with torment, while I was harrowed up by the memory of my many sins, behold, I remembered also to have heard my father prophesy unto the people concerning the coming of one Jesus Christ, a Son of God, to atone for the sins of the world. Now, as my mind caught hold upon this thought, I cried within my heart: O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness, and am encircled about by the everlasting chains of death. And now, behold, when I thought this, I could remember my pains no more; yea, I was harrowed up by the memory of my sins no more. And oh, what joy, and what marvelous light I did behold; yea, my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain! Yea, I say unto you, my son, that there could be nothing so exquisite and so bitter as were my pains. Yea, and again I say unto you, my son, that on the other hand, there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy.”

Remember the good that comes from repentance and the gospel. I love thinking about the last time I went to the temple and the spirit that I felt inside. When I have doubts, or I get discouraged, or someone we talk to says some anti or bring up something against the church, I remember the temple or a time that I gained a witness of this gospel’s truth. Remembering these moments helps to strengthen me during hard times. I don't think anyone could ever lose faith or hope or leave the church if they just remember. Remember the feelings that come as you do good. A lot of missionaries have had hard times because their investigators have encountered some anti material against the church. The best thing to do they say is to ask them how it made them feel. Peace only comes from the Holy Ghost. As we remember the times that we have felt the Holy Ghost our testimonies will be strengthened. As a missionary, it is my job to extend commitments to everyone I talk to, so my commitment is to find ways to remember Jesus Christ this Christmas season and to write down when you have felt the Holy Ghost and when you have seen God's hand in your lives. Sorry for boring all of you to death but I felt like I needed to write that. 

Another great talk about remembering the Savior is "Always Remember Him" by Garrit W. Gong in the April 2016 General Conference. 

December 3 Letter

Can you tell I'm having a wee bit of a time trying to keep up. Elder Leary got his package so now he's got a Christmas tree for his apartment.

I shipped out his Christmas package today, so hopefully on Wednesday he'll have some presents to put under that tree.

 

His presents had our traditional Santa math tags. Hopefully they will make him feel like he's at a home a little. Only 10 more days until we get to talk to him!

He was also busy this week putting together a Primary nativity.

December 3
It's been a long week. We had some good lessons and cool experiences, some not so good ones, and some cancelled. I'll start with the bad.

We had a lesson with a family with 2 daughters that want to get baptized and a dad that wont let them. We had s great lesson yesterday and invited them to be baptized and they said yes. Long story shirt though, the dad said they couldn't and now we dont really know how to proceed. We're going to keep in contact with the dad and address some of his concerns. It's kind of a terrible scenario for the whole family. Oh well, we'll figure it out. 

We also had an awesome lesson with Sister Villamil, an inactive member and her nonmember husband. It went awesome and we're hoping to invite him to be baptized this week. 

We had a cool experience with them. That morning so I was leaving I had the impression to grab a Spanish Book of Mormon. I never have them or need them. Anyway, I didn't have room for them in my bag. I had been having problems with my bike tire deflating, so I had a bike pump in my bag. I decided to take it out of my bag and put in the Book of Mormon instead. All day long, I never needed to use it so I was pretty confused. The last thing we did that night was go to our appointment. We're found out that they had lost their Book of Mormon and so I have her one and her husband wanted one too. I have one too him and he said he can only read in Spanish. He speaks English pretty well but I guess he can't read it. I was like hey, I have a Spanish one! So that was pretty cool. 
     
We had 5 appointments cancel this week, and 3 in one day. That means we did a lot of tracting. We didn't find a single person until Sunday night though. Sometimes nobody ever wants to hear what you have to say. Oh well, next week will be better. 

We also saw lots of cool reptiles this week. We saw hundreds of lizards,

a gecko, a WILD IGUANA,

and a man caught a black racer snake.

November 26 Letter

Here's an overview of my week. We got to have p day with a different zone in Rockledge which was muy bueno y divertido. We had transfers and now only have 1 ward, yay! We found 3 new peeps, Cathy, Moises and Brian.

Thanksgiving happened on Thursday in case you didn't know, and it was awesome. And last night we had dinner with a family comprised of a member, 2 investigators, 3 nonmembers, and 2 kids. It went soooooo well.

So last p day we went to Rockledge because it's closer than where our zone goes in Vero. We got to hang out with that entire zone in their monstrous gym which made basketball and gator ball way fun. Ender Squires' trainer is also in that zone so we got to hang out with him. We are also going to be with that zone today. 

We had transfers on Tuesday and got sisters in Palm Bay 1, the other ward we were covering. So now we're back to 1 ward and there are sisters in our apartment complex. So we're also back to sharing a car. It makes our job easier, but now we're back to biking basically everywhere because we let the sisters use the car most days because they have a big area.

We found 3 new people. Cathy we found tracting. She is pretty old with lots of health issues, but she's the sweetest person ever. She was on her porch and we talked to her for a good 20 minutes. We offered some service and then talked a little about the Plan of Salvation and the Book of Mormon. She said we could come back this week, so that will be fun. Moises was the dad of someone we found tracting. We got a return appointment with his son Alejandro, and we went to the appointment and Alejandro was just going to work, but he had talked to his dad and his dad was more interested than he was. So that was kind of funny, but we had a really long lesson with Moises about what the Book of Mormon is and how it can bless his life and his families lives. He is really cool and seemed very interested. So that was amazing. Brian was the last one we found, I'll talk about him later.

So Thanksgiving was Thursday. We all know what that means, we can now listen to Christmas music.😃 Thanksgiving was fun though we had dinner with the Hobson family and the Rasmussen family. It was really good. They're the 2 families that feed us the most, and the Bro. Hobson is the mission leader, so we k ow them really well. The sister missionaries in our ward also ate with us. It was fun. We spent the rest of the day tracting and wishing people a Happy Thanksgiving and we visited as many single people in the ward as we could to make sure they had people to spend it with. 

Our dinner last night was amazing. It was with the Schwind family. The moms a member and they have 4 daughters. There's a 15 yo and a 13 yo that are investigators. The dad is not interested at the moment. We had ribs and talked a lot to all of them. The daughters really want to be baptized but the parents dont want them to because they think they're doing it for the wrong reasons. We've become really good friends with the dad which is good. We had a good lesson on faith and how it might start as a tiny seed but that's ok and last week we had a lesson about the importance of building our own testimonies. The whole family liked it and the dad even said he'd read out of the Book of Mormon this week. 😀☺ Next week we have another dinner and hopefully we'll put the daughters on date to be baptized. 

Also, I biffed it on my bike. Check my google drive for more photos. What happened was we were biking down a sidewalk by a whole bunch of tall tightly packed houses and it was pretty windy. We passed by a canal which mean there was a big canyon thing that all the wind was going through. So right as we were passing it a huge wind gust hit and pushed me to the left, then I overcorrected and fell. I want hurt at all, I caught myself pretty well, but it messed up my seat and my brakes a little bit. It's all good now though.

That's all folks.

P.S. Oh yeah, Brian is the dad at the end, should've clarified that.

Angels Among Us

I'm sitting here in awe at what just transpired. My previous bishop and friend, Mark Steinagel, just called to say he had just surprised Erik, or Elder Leary I should say, at church. I knew he was going to Orlando on a business trip because he asked for Erik's information. I gave him what I had but let him know I certainly did not expect him to seek our Erik because of the distance. Erik is in an area an hour south of Orlando.

But in my heart of hearts, I knew he would find a way to get down there.

And he did. He said, "I wasn't sure if I was breaking mission rules by being there, but I figured I wasn't family."

He called me after church to tell me about his experience.

Mark and his daughter drove 1 1/2 hours to the meetinghouse Erik is assigned to. They walked in just as it was about to start to find a full meetinghouse with no seats except for the two right up by two elders in white shirts.The opening hymn had begun as they made their way to these two empty seats. He sat down nonchalantly by Erik. Mark said the face Erik made when he glanced over to see who was sitting by him was priceless as Erik gave him the biggest grin. Erik immediately leaned over to his companion to tell him who was sitting with them.

They briefly talked after the meeting, but Mark could tell that Erik was unsure how to interact with someone from home. He could tell that Erik felt the need to get to work with whatever they had planned that day. After learning that Erik and his companion didn't have a car in the 89 degree heat, he offered to take them wherever they needed to be. He was going to consecrate his rental car to the work of the Lord for the day. Immediately after he felt that wasn't the right thing to do, and Erik confirmed his feelings when he said (without consulting with his companion), "I don't think that would be a good idea."

They talked just briefly and Mark watched Erik and his companion talk with some people up front and then out in the hall. He felt it was time to go and quickly waved goodbye to Erik.

Mark relayed to me that Erik looked fantastic. He looked happy and upbeat. Oh how this mother's heart was grateful to hear from someone who had a first hand experience with Elder Leary in the mission field. You get emails home, but sometimes I wonder how much he's really saying. I guess that is why the Holy Ghost is so important. I've felt at peace with the weekly emails and haven't had to worry too much. The Holy Ghost has given me that peace and Bishop Steinagel confirmed those feelings today.

Twenty-three more days until we get to talk to our missionary. I CAN'T WAIT!! I need to commission Ash and Alex to make us a missionary chain instead of the usual Christmas chain.

Mark has been an important part of my family's life. He has given such great service unselfishly as he puts other's needs first. He will always have a special place in my heart for the service he has given to us.

*He didn't feel comfortable getting a picture with Erik so this is what I've got from the day Erik opened his mission call. Bishop Steinagel is in the suit.