Nobody ever said...

... I would LOVE it this much!

I LOVE MY MISSION. I LOVE IT. I feel like Rocky, in his last letter [yes folks the boy sent me a HAND-WRITTEN letter, happy day!] he said, "I just want to shout it off the roof-tops, the gospel has been restored!" I too feel that way. On Friday I will only have six months left to share that message. I LOVE being a full-time representative of Jesus Christ. It is truly an AmAzing experience. Doctrine and Covenants, Section 4 talks all about our work as missionaries, it says:

1 Now behold, a marvelous work is about to come forth among the children of men.
2 Therefore, O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day.
3 Therefore, if ye have desires to serve God ye are called to the work;
4 For behold the field is white already to harvest; and lo, he that thrusteth in his sickle with his might, the same layeth up in store that he perisheth not, but bringeth salvation to his soul;
5 And faith, hope, charity and love, with an eye single to the glory of God, qualify him for the work.
6 Remember faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility, diligence.
7 Ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Amen.

I love those scriptures! Especially verses 5-7. I truly feel like I am learning to posess those qualities as a missionary. Sometimes I have to really REALLY stretch to have TEMPERANCE or PATIENCE with certain people or certain situations, but I feel a power beyond my own helping me to be CALM and to RELAX and speak and act as the Lord would have me... even when it's REALLY REALLY hard and I could easily be irritated or angry. The spanish elders often say to me "CALMATE or TRANQUILA" while we play soccer... haha. I am learning to incorporate those in to all allys of my life. It's good for me... but sometimes stretching HURTS!

This was one of the best weeks on my mission. It started and ended well. I truly have been so HAPPY in this work this week!

[MON] play soccer. i was DYING Of sickness [a cold], but i HAD to play.. so I did. We then made breakfast [pancakes] at the FLORES for them and all the elders and helped her plant flowers. we emailed. we went to Target. We had ENCHILADAS with TED and CHERYL and then I went to bed.

[TUE] I did not get out of bed. I was SO sick. I slept the day away. It felt so WIERD... but so good. The wierd thing was, no matter how long I slept, I was STILL TIRED!! I planned on going out that night, but then I just couldn't, so the sisters had dinner at the Ngorney's and taught AMY without me. I stayed home, slept, showered, and ate homemade chicken noodle soup courtesy of sister blake. Kassidy was sick too, she's the Blake's oldest daughter, so she was my companion. We both went to bed early.

[WED] we had district meeting and interviews with President and Sister Barrett. I love them SO much! They both expressed to me how much they love me, how grateful they were to have me in the mission, but specifically how grateful they were to have me in Racine. President mentioned the first time he met me, oh how I love that he still remembers street contacting with me in downtown Milwaukee that COLD November night! He loves that I was so bold, which is true, but i was SO new I didn't know there was another way! haha He says I haven't lost it! He said I am just so happy and enthusiastic in the work! It was a great interview, one of the best I have had. Sister Barrett made me a CD! I love it... I DEF needed new music! I love the Barrett's. It's so good to hear you are loved and appreciated sometimes, that is what I needed. It has been a little stressful having the Sister JOhnsOn's here... they are both great, but both new to the area. Russian Johnson is BRAND NEW... I always have to be on my A GAME! ... which is good... but stressful sometimes.

Elder Petrie gave us great training at district meeting. He committed us to PRAY with pen and paper and write down inspiration/revelation we receive, to update our area book EVERY night and use it in planning and to practice ROLE-PLAYING teaching scenarios in companionship study. We role-played during district meeting too. We did finding ideas. At one point I was paired up with on of the assistants, elder carter, he was the missionary and I was pretending to be a girl walking on campus. He did SUCH a GREAT JOB of bringing the spirit and testifying! Even in a role-play the Lord will bless us with the spirit as we bear testimony of Him.

[THU] we painted our room at the Blakes to make it more generic so it would sell... it was brown and TEAL... BRIGHT TEAL OR AQUA OR SOMETHING... my luggage colors!... NOW it is a beautiful brown. Then we taught TINA and SUZIE. We set a baptismal date with SUZIE for OCT 31st. It was a great experience. Suzie just had a baby. Her boyfriend is a less-active member who is coming back. They are a great couple, good hearted people. I am excited for Suzie to see the fruits of repentance in her life over the next couple weeks as she prepares for baptism. We had the Sura's for dinner and we had a GREAT lesson with Dave. We found out his concerns for not being baptized and remaining the "most non-mormon MORMON" [as he calls himself] we know. We gave him a calendar. I hope and pray he prayfully considers this decision and makes a plan, we can't do it for him.

[FRI] we taught english in kenosha with the elders. It was really good, we had such a good turn-out. It helps my Spanish so much. We are even going to begin teaching the gospel to some of those whom we teach english. Elaena is one of them- she is older and has a really big family. we left the RESTORATION pamphlets in English and Spanish in the classroom. She works at the Centro Hispano, where we have class and she has been reading a page a day, reading is really difficult for her, in both english and spanish. SHE IS SO PREPARED! We taught Suzy again and Tina too. We set a date with Tina again, [she had a date when I first got here] for NOVEMBER 1st. I know she can do it! We had dinner with Vivian Maine, a sweet older lady. I love her.

[SAT] WE WENT TO THE TEMPLE... sister Blake dropped us off in Chicago at around 7 am... we left the house at 6... we got up at 5! BUT it was SUCH a GREAT day! We did initiatories... IN SPANISH... then an endowment session at 8am. At 10:30 the FLORES family was SEALED together for TIME and ALL ETERNITY. I love the Flores family. They have been members for a little over a year. They have 4 children Fernanda [15], Lupita [13], Sofi [9], & Brian [6] . They are such a wonderful family! I have grown really close to them. We play soccer with them every saturday and have breakfast at their home every PDAY. The last time i was in a sealing room was when I was Sofi's age...that's 13 years ago. It was a very spiritual experience for me to remember my family and my own sealing. THe last thing the Sealer said to them, after the children left was, "Your children don't have to make covenants, they are yours forever!" WOW! What a blessing that is as members of the church. How grateful I am for forever families. My favorite thing to teach when we teach the Plan of Salvation is that God allows us to learn about our relationship with Him as our Heavenly Father by giving us families. We love our parents and our children unconditionally, thru that love we come to know His love for us.

I love the temple. Doing initiatories [it was my first time since I did my own initiatory last year this time] in Spanish made me pay attention better, what blessings come from attending the temple and making and keeping our covenants there! Heavenly Father desires to bless us SO much, I always think of that when I am at the temple. I am so grateful for parents who LOVE me and brittany and rocky SO MUCH... and for their willingness to keep the commandments and live the gospel in order to bless us as an eternal family!

Speaking of FAMILY... it just happened to be GREEN BAY STAKE TEMPLE DAY! Right before the sealing we came out of our session and I got to see EVERYONE I LOVE from green bay! [President Kreihbl, P. & S. Biolo, S. Doucette, S. Roberts, the Carlsruh's, and MANY MANY MORE] WHAT A BLESSING! If a year ago someone told me I would love the people this much I wouldn't have believed them. My companions were laughing at me because I was so excited. Practically our WHOLE ward was there! They all hugged me and we caught up. I love them. I pray I get to end my mission serving there... we shall see. I was looking for Lisa Robertson, she wasn't there though. After the sealing I was changing in the locker room out of my temple clothes and someone put their hand under my door and said "Watcha doin' in there?" Oliva Robertson used to do that whenever we went to the bathroom. I was ecstatic to see her... Little J said she was the same to see me! THOSE PEOPLE ARE MY FAMILY IN WISCONSIN. OH HOW I LOVE THEM!

The rest of the day/night was filled with partying. We came back with Hermana Calderwood, went to her kids' soccer game for like 10 minutes, it was FREEZING... then we went to her house and had HOT CHOCOLATE AND BAGELS... then off to the church for the FLORES FIESTA. She wore a wedding dress, he a TUX, There was TONS of GOOD mexican food and a HUGE CAKE! Strobe lights and LOTS of dancing... so fun! I LOVE SERVING IN THE BRANCH!

[SUN] We had FOUR INVESTIGATORS at CHURCH! Suzy, Tina, Tiana [tinas oldest daughter] and Marka! IT was a really great fast and testimony sunday! After church we had SOUL FOOD at Temika's cousin's house here in Racine. They were having a big family party. I didn't know what SOUL FOOD was until last night... yum. When we came in the house everyone just stared at us... there were at least 40 people there... we were the only white people! haha they thought it was HILARIOUS my name was Sister Black. They had all kinds of jokes. None of them are members but we had a great time. We are teaching two of temika's cousins who live there, Raven [15] and Darneesha [11]. We teach our first formal lesson to them tomorrow. They asked me to bless the food and to keep it short, no discourses! haha it was funny! It was a lot of fun, AND I LEARNED WHAT collard greens are! I even ate them... and fried fish! ya i know, AmAzing. . . and i liked it. haha

The rest of the night we spent at the Crowther's with Tina. When we got there Sister Crowther said there would be no lesson; tina confided in her about a lot of problems in her life and couldn't make any kind of cognative decision. She just cried a lot. All of the kids were there too. We sang her Abide with me 'tis Eventide. That calmed her down and then she was willing to accept a blessing of cousel and comfort from Bro. Crowther... IT WAS AMAZING. I really know that the Lord loves Tina SO much. He blessed her to have strength to make hard decisions... it was so specific. He told her to move out of her mom's, get a job, find stable housing, work peacebly with her children's fathers and to not live with another man outside the bonds of marriage. AmAzing. It was SO specific and she was counseled to pray and ask specific questions and wait for the answers. I love the Priesthood! I am pretty sure Tina stayed at the Crowthers last night with the baby. She has no heat or electricity or food at her apt. The members have really stepped up again. Oh how grateful i am that Tina has realized that strength in her life and will now accept help and begin to repent. We hope to teach her tomorrow.

That is the FULL scoop! I love my mission. I love all of you! Keep the mail coming!

Love, sister pamella jo black