CHANGE...

Alma teaches us all about CHANGE...

In Alma 5: 12- 15 He says, speaking of his father, Alma, and his hearing the words of Abidinadi and acting on them, he says,

12 And according to his faith there was a mighty change wrought in his heart. Behold I say unto you that this is all true.

13 And behold, he apreached the word unto your fathers, and a mighty change was also wrought in their hearts, and they humbled themselves and put their trust in the true and living God. And behold, they were faithful until the end; therefore they were saved.

14 And now behold, I ask of you, my brethren of the church, have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances? Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts?

I love the way Alma so PERFECTLY asks those thought provoking questions... I also like that he teaches us CHANGE is a GOOD THING... apparently that is something that I am supposed to learn on my mission!

SO, here it is... the latest change: President Barrett called this morning, love those phone calls!, and asked us if we had room for one more sister! HA we sure do! So i guess we are going to be 3 now and not just the 2 Racine Hermanas! Who she is, where she is from, how she shall get here... we know NOT! We know there is a visa waiting sister coming in today, but we don't know if we will get her, or a different sister in the mission! I will let you know next week... and in case you are wondering, as I was, no, my mission will never be NORMAL! What is normal anyways?

OK... so here is the DL...

[MON] WORST PDAY EVER... those stinkin' elders don't get to plan pday anymore! we emailed here at UW parkside, then went to the church and made the lasagna sister KASPAR left us in the fridge! It was so cute, she even had garlic bread and instructions... so we put that in the oven for it's alloted time, 45 min, did our language study and then got excited to go play with the elders... well they were on hole 15 of the 18 hole disc golf course here at the university. are you kidding me? so we wanted to go play games or something afterwards, ya they had to finish emailing, but promised it would be fast. Ya, it so WAS NOT fast, by the time they were done pday was over and we wanted culvers, we invited them, they had an appt. SO basically we waiting for them in Kenosha ALL day for no reason! LAME SAUCE! never again! that night we had an AmAzing visit with Tiffany McGee who is starting to come back to church. She realizes the church = stability in a not-so-stable world!

[TUES] We finally saw Tina, man, it's been forever. She is doing good, still struggling... but she is MOVING! yeah! It's a really GOOD thing! She needs to get AWAY from her mom! Tina has a lot of faith, she just needs to understand the added strength making the covenant of BAPTISM will give her. God promises us power from on high, even the Holy Ghost, when we fully accept the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and are baptized. We me a new investigator, Kim, one of Temika King's friends, I LOVE THE MEMBERS HERE. The elders were able to give Kim a blessing of counsel and comfort. It was good. i love the priesthood. 4:30pm: dinner with the abbotts ... then off to Union Grove to contact some people that nobody knows on the ward list. It was so sad to hear some of them say that they wanted their names removed from church records, devestating actually. Do they know what they are giving up?

[WED] sister calderwood taught us spanish at nine am. i love her. She is the BEST. I learn so much from her. we taught english at ten am, which really = we learn spanish. Jaime and Oscar took us out to lunch after at a chinese buffet [it was a nice one, AND i didn't get sick, AmAzing] We went and helped Tina clean/ pack. We had The Farley's for dinner at 4:30 ... we taught Amy the Plan of Salvation there, so good ... then we went to the church to play volleyball. my favorite.

[THURS] We again helped Tina. she needs a lot of help, we really want to get a member involved, she's not up for that yet though, we keep asking. We then did weekly planning and caught up on the area book. Afterwards we had the LONGEST dinner appt ever with Brother Jones and Sister Barrett [married- she didn't take his name, long story] BUT The food was YUMMY and the CONVERSATION was good. I love meeting converts of the church. Their Strength is Commendable!

[FRI] ZONE CONFERENCE with the Milwaukee north and south zones, here at our Kenosha building. [i got to see the milwaukee trio: sisters WARNER, pluim and johnson] it was amazing as expected. the spirit was so strong. we learned out to make this work the members work and how to make our investigators their investigators, i learned a lot. Then we taught Tina about holding to the rod, staying out of mists of darkness and HOW to partake of the fruit. We had culvers for dinner. yum.

[SAT] we played soccer at nine. i get better every time... man, it's been FOREVER since i have played, but these people are intense... and they coach me in SPANISH... so it's like killing two birds with one stone. I learn spanish AND how to play. Elder Smith is like a gazelle or something, he can get down the field SO fast in like 5 strides [haha a vampire maybe?] anyways, i got the ball away from him a few times, it was fun! It does so much for me to get dirty and sweat and play hard- it's a must!

At 2:30 sister wren picked us up at the Blake's and we drove to the stake center in Milwaukee for Stake Women's Conference and then to watch the Relief Society General Broadcast afterwards. It was a great night. I LOVE BEING A GIRL! I LOVE BEING A SISTER MISSIONARY! We saw the milwaukee sisters again, and i got to see all the people i worked with in the two wards in milwaukee. it was a good time. Each ward did a presentation of some sort, sister johnson and I were in three musical numbers! so fun! did i mention... I DON'T SING! haha ... i am starting to think I DO though... ahaha The broadcast was amazing too. On sunday, when President Calderwood asked me what happened at the broadcast, what was said, i said, "oh they taught us women are better than men." HAHA it was HILARIOUS. He always teases me. He like that comment though...

[SUN] LONG DAY AT CHURCH... on top of that... I HAD TO SPEAK! ... IN THE SPANISH BRANCH! IT was a GREAT opportunity! I wrote my talk Saturday morning and sister calderwood edited it saturday night at the broadcast. She wrote me the cutest little note afterward, she is so encouraging... I LOVE HER. did i mention that?

My talk was on missionary work, I addressed these 3 questions, Por que es importante hacer la obra misional?, Por que queremos hacer la obra misional? y Como podemos hacer la obra misional? ... It went well... elder petrie spoke too.

After church was FLIGHT 409 with the english ward. We went on a flight to Hawaii,it crashed, and we visited each of the three kingdoms. AmAzing. so good for the kids! they loved it and learned alot. it was a great spiritual experience for me. At 6:30 we had dinner with the Furners, yum yum... and then taught Michelle Cabrales with Elders Petrie and Campbell at eight, it was a full night, but it was a GREAT DAY! We ended the night making doughnuts at bishop's with Elders Stribling and Warner. I love being a missionary.

Sister Johnson and I are trying to get through the Book of Mormon in Spanish as fast as possibe, it's fun, we read it every spare moment.

I love this work! I love being a missionary! [do i say that enough?!] I love my family! I am so grateful for eternal families! LIfe is GOoD here! I pray for you all constantly!

Love, sister pamella jo black