So much to be Thankful for

Hello my dear family!

I hope you all had a fantastic week and a wonderful Thanksgiving! I missed you all more than I can say, and I am so grateful that I'm only missing ONE family Thanksgiving and Christmas. We were invited by our bishop to go over to one of their friends' houses for Thanksgiving and it was great! The food was delicious, and the company was great too. The house that we went to had a gorgeous baby grand piano, and I got to play it a little! That made me so happy. Thanksgiving morning we did service at Salvation Army, and we also picked up trash in a field by the meetinghouse. We found some wild squash growing there and they were the perfect size to play "squash-ball" with! It was hilarious! We had a piece of wood as the bat, and sometimes when we hit the squash they would explode! It was so much fun, and we even got President and Sister Heap to join in :) After dinner, we were able to take a nap. It was the longest nap ever! (really, just an hour and a half, but when you're used to a fifteen minute nap at the end of the lunch hour, you'll take anything you can!) Then, we went to another member's house for pie and then all of the missionaries in Lubbock got together and played sports! We played dodgeball, and it was the looooongest game ever! But, I loved it! It was really hot in the gym of the church and by the end I could almost wring out my hair! Gross! But it was so much fun. It was a really good day.

So, we have a neighbor who is not YSA, but she's so cute! She's this little spanish lady named Nina and we started talking to her, just in passing, as she decorated for Christmas. I'll have to take a picture and send it to y'all because she goes all out! On Saturday, we were passing by again, and so we waved and I felt prompted to say "Como esta?" The look on her face was priceless! Immediately, she began talking in rapidfire spanish, and luckily I got the gist of what she said, but talking to her made me so happy! I am really excited to develop a relationship with her and eventually, hopefully, introduce her to the gospel. :)

This morning we had an adventure! We get a call from our vehicle coordinator that we needed to schedule a safety inspection for our car, and so we've been trying to do that for the past week without success. But, this morning, We ended up having to call General Motors to get the information we needed, and they had the greatest, most polite machine ever! We were impressed, and a little speechless!

This week I have been happier than I have been in a long, loong time. I didn't notice until Sister Harvey pointed it out, but since then, I've seen a huge change in myself. It all started about a week and a half ago, when I was having a hard day, and I was able to talk to President Heap. That morning, I had studied joy and rejoicing, and something he said to me brought that to my memory. So, I decided that every day, I was going to write down the things that gave me joy. I've been doing it ever since! I know that doing that small thing every day is the reason why I am happy more often than before. I've truly experienced joy while in the service of the Lord. Something else is that I've learned that joy comes in all sorts of forms. For me, I've experienced the joy where you want to shout it from the rooftops and share it with everyone, but recently, I've experienced a quieter joy. I would describe it as a contentment in the gospel and in the Lord. I catch myself smiling at random moments during the day, for no reason at all! The gospel is the ONLY way to everlasting happiness!!

One more thing! Kat was baptized on Saturday :D It was an amazing baptism and both of her parents were there, and they both had tears in their eyes. They're both Church of Christ and weren't really sure about letting their daughter join the "Mormon Church", but then yesterday in her confirmation, Kat was told that her example and her light would influence her family and her parents in marvelous ways. We'll stay tuned for what happens next!

I love you all so much and I am so grateful to call you mine :)