Missionary life

Family and Friends,
 
Another eventful week has passed by in South Phoenix. Last week was busy: we did exchanges on tuesday (i had a blast!), and a sister's meeting on wednesday.  That was so much fun! we had great speakers, musical numbers, and a lot of people throughout our areas donated clothing that we could pick out to "spruce up our wardrobes" as sister taylor said! haha it really was fun and we found a lot of hilarious clothes, and some cute clothes as well.  Pretty much i found 2 sweet plaid skirts that i might take to ukraine with me..after i get them hemmed haha.  It was a good opportunity to get to know all of the sisters from the mission and hear about everyone's areas and stuff.  We are excited for this week, us and the hermanas are going to the temple at the blessed hour of 4:45 tomorrow morning so we can hit the 5:30 session and also do initiatories.  I'm so excited!! The mesa temple looks really pretty.  That is one of the things that i miss the most about the MTC, going to the temple every week.  And of course, we are so excited for Thanksgiving on thursday! Us and the elders in our ward got invited to this adorable family's house for Thanksgiving dinner.  And it's an all day P-day other than going to dinner, district meeting, and if we have any appointments.  Thank you president taylor! haha P days are very necessary for our well being as missionaries.  Today we are having a district activity which includes eating a lot of treats and watching church movies at the church haha. we are way stoked!  Saturday was a busy day, we went to 2 baptisms! One was the elders baptism in our ward, and we went to one in sister belnap's old area.  I got to see elder kennedy again on saturday at the baptism, and once again it was so nice to speak russian.  My language studies are going well, actually more effective than i thought they would be, so i feel good about that.  I still think about Ukraine everyday, but Phoenix has been good to me and i really like it here.  It might even be a little hard to leave when the time comes.  On wednesday this week, we are doing what they call a "zebra" exchange.  I am going with hermana watson to the spanish area, and hermana kigueta is going with sister belnap to our area.  haha should be interesting to sit in on spanish lessons all day.  i'm hoping for some good mexican food, hermana watson said she would hook us up with some. yay!  Also, i finally got an english nametag, so i officially fit in here-as much as a missionary can haha. 
 
Our investigators are so awesome.  We are teaching 2 ladies the New Member lessons (just the lessons all over again after they get baptized). One of them is Grace.  She was baptized a long time ago, when she was like 11.  She bounced back and forth between our church and the catholic church, but after a long crazy series of events in her life, she wants to come back to church, so we are just teaching her the lessons to get familiar with the doctrine again.  She is so sweet and she has such a strong desire to be strong in the church again.  She lives with her boyfriend, but they want to get married, but didn't want to get married in the catholic church.  She asked if our bishop could marry them and we happily told her yes.  Her boyfriend only speaks spanish and he wants to learn about the church and take the lessons, so we referred him to the spanish elders.  I bet they will get married and he will get baptized.  Anyway, she is so sweet and she loves us coming over.  We have another lesson with Bernadina, Joseph, and Danny tonight.  They bailed on church yesterday so we went over and just talked to them to set up an appointment, and Joseph started asking all these questions about baptism.  So we went in and answered his questions and talked to them about everything.  Bernadina and Joseph both told us that they want to get baptized and are ready to, they just were both like "tell us what we need to do!" haha it was awesome.  so tonight we want to throw down a date and get them prepared.  They are awesome and we love them.  Another one of our investigators: Debra.  She has also had a crazy, crazy life.  a lot of her family are members of the church, and she wants to get baptized.  we have a date for her on Dec 10th, but i have a feeling we will have to push it back because she needs to quit smoking.  She is solid though as soon as she quits smoking.  We are getting to know our ward more and they are really stepping up and helping us, so that is awesome. 
 
I am loving reading the Book of Mormon again, and it amazes me that you can read something over and over, but you always learn something new from it.  Nephi rocks, that's all i have to say.  I really love being a missionary! It is hard, frustrating, crazy, wierd, and long, but it feels good at the end of the day to just feel so tired.  I love being able to help real people with their questions/problems.  It is amazing to see people come to an understanding of the gospel and it's principles.  It's incredible to see people emulate Christ and want to follow him.  I am so grateful that i have had the gospel my whole life, there are so many people who need it!  Sometimes our investigators tell us their life stories, and it makes me so sad for them that they have been so lost and confused.  I love the simpleness of the gospel, i love the peace that it brings to my life.  I feel so honored to be a missionary and watch how the gospel can change other's lives. 
 
We haven't heard anything about visas yet, but we are still praying for them.  I love you all!! I love representing Christ.  I think about the missionaries everywhere and realize we are all going through the same things.  I especially think about the certain missionaries that I love in Singapore, Texas, and North Carolina.  It's amazing to see how much good we can all do!  I love you all and happy thanksgiving!!
 
Sister DeMille