Un espiritu de esperanza‏

From:	Callie Horton (callie.horton@myldsmail.net)
Sent:	Mon 4/07/14 10:20 AM

Hola mi familia y mis amigos!

 

First off, Virginia looks AMAZING right now! It has exploded with flowers. It is absolutely amazing! I just want to take a picture of them all because there are so many different kinds and they are all so pretty! I will try to take some more pictures this week of them so that you can share in the beauty that is happening here! Prepare to be amazed.

 

Something cool we found out this last week is that a member of the quorum of the twelve is coming to visit our mission at the beginning of next month! And we're combining with the Chesapeake Bay mission! So that means that I will get to see the one and only Rachael Harrison!!! So I am definitely looking forward to that!

 

Conference was AMAZING!! Oh jeez. I loved it. But how could you not love it? All of the talks were given with such humility and love. It was impossible to not feel the Spirit. I loved Elder Holland's talk! Holy cow! When he pointed at the camera and was just baring such strong testimony I was just like, "Yeah, you tell 'em Elder Holland!" It was super powerful. I also loved Gary E. Stevenson’s (I think that's his name) talk. I thought it was so cool everything that he shared about the Olympics. I especially loved that story about the snow boarder who just held her opponent tight until she calmed down. And I love how she said, "I want my competitors to do their best too." That is so cool! Sometimes we spend so much time trying to be better than others when really we should just spend time doing our best and helping others do their best too. And of course, President Uchtdorf's talk was amazing! There's nothing I love more than the topic of gratitude. He put it well. We should definitely count our blessings, but we should live our lives in an overall spirit of gratitude. And I honestly believe that with that, you will be able to count so many blessings no matter what is going on in your life. All of the talks were just so good!! I loved how much they talked about Christ and His life. And also how much they talked about the pure love of Christ, and standing up for what we believe in.

 

This past week was great!! So Corina is just so ready for baptism, but she kept saying something about being baptized in the summer and we just thought that that was too far away. So we were fasting and praying lately that she would set the day of April 26 for her baptism. We knew that she could do it. So while we were fasting I just kept thinking about how it could be sooner, but I just thought that I was creating those thoughts because that's what I wanted. So we go to have our next lesson with her and we bring up baptism and we were just talking about how ready we knew she was, and Hermana McRae just bore such strong testimony about how she could see her dressed in white. And what does she say? "Well, ok I probably can't be baptized next week, but the week after sounds good!" Something along those lines. I was shocked! So we have a lesson with her tonight and we are going to set the date! We were just so excited that when we got home we just jumped around and hugged haha. So it looks like it will be sooner than the 26th!

 

We had this day this week where a lot of people weren't all that nice to us. I haven't had so many people be mean to us in just one day! It was crazy. So after this one door this lady came out and got really mad at us and after I was just thinking about how sick I was of people not listening to us. It was kind of making me discouraged. A couple of houses later, we were standing on a doorstep and I was just thinking about how sick I was of the people that day and we received our miracle. A cute lady named Sona answers the door and says that she wants us to come back and teach her family. She was so sincere and was excited for us to go teach her kids. That was a huge testimony builder to me that we should always keep looking because the 'one' is out there. We should never give up because we are discouraged or anything or else we might not find the person that the Lord has prepared. It definitely made everything that had happened before that not seem so bad. The Lord is always watching out for us. He helps us to keep going even when it seems that no success will happen. There is always something to be hopeful about in every day.

 

Well I hope that you all have a marvelous week! Don't forget to be grateful! I love you!!

 

And now I close mine epistle. I am Hermana Horton.

 

PS for those that don't know, the title of my email means 'a spirit of hope'