Keep Moving Forward

Heyyyyyyy yo! :)

 I'm writing this email as the clock slowly ticks towards bedtime. For once I am unable to fall right asleep- I'm much to excited about what has happened this past week and what is in store for the coming week.Miracles happen. Right dad? ;) Anyway, that's the nice thing about iPads. I can start this group email on a note and send it tomorrow before we play LASER TAG. #bestzoneever

ANYWHO

I hope all of you had a wonderful week full of sharing the gospel and reading the Book of Mormon. :) I finished the Book of Mormon yesterday. There's this fire inside me that re-ignites each time I finish reading it. Reading about Moroni and how solid he was at the very end just makes me want to be so much better as a missionary and as a person. He knew that this gospel was true, and nothing was ever going to change that. Being alone, sentenced to die, literally the last believer of his entire civilization, walking hundreds of miles with a pile of gold plates fleeing for his life. Nope. NOTHING was going to change the fact that he knew God had a divine mission for him and that he was going to accomplish it. I sure hope to be a lot more like him. Baby steps right? ;) We didn't have a whole lot of success finding investigators tonight and so Sister Hurst and I were talking in the car on the way home about our desire to share the gospel. I looked over to the rims right above the temple and pictured myself standing there- Book of Mormon in hand shouting, "THIS BOOK IS TRUE AND CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE. JUST TRUST ME AND READ IT OKAY?!" Very much like unto Samuel the Lamanite. I think I'll skip the rocks and arrows part though. Haha. BUT. You get my point right? This message we share is one that deserves to be shouted from the rooftops. Just ask Moroni. Or Alma. Or Moses. Or Nephi. Or Joseph Smith. They all had this fire inside them to share the word of God with everyone. I can only hope and pray and work to have it in me all the more. Guys. I just really love the Book of Mormon.

Alrighty. Shifting gears. I think most of you know this but I really am not a huge fan of roller coasters. (Ciara, Garret, Sarah, you know what I'm talking about ;)) I don't do the whole I'm-seat-belted-into-a-metal-machine-that-wants-to-test-how-well-my-body-responds-to-gravity thing very willingly. I'll stick with the leisurely little Ferris wheel. Well, they don't tell you before you come on a mission that you're really just getting on the biggest, twistiest, turniest, loopdy-loopiest roller coaster you have EVER stepped foot on. Boy oh boy. I thought I knew what I was getting into. HA. Nope. No idea. But, the trick is -just put your hands up in the air and let it goooooooo. Heavenly Father has this specific roller coaster of a mission for me. He knows just the right amount of times my world needs to be turned upside down. The times I needed to hit rock bottom. The times when I will slowly be working my way up those hard hills, and the times when I'm flying so fast across the sky I can hardly take it all in. I've thought about this a lot the past few days. Those first few months on my mission were a seemingly endless uphill climb. I just wanted to hit that peak and get to the fast paced missionary work I had pictured. We FINALLY got there...And then it went straight into a loopdy-loop of being VERY sick and VERY incapable of doing the work I had been called to do. Pretty sure it was one of those rare moments when the little cart got stuck at the very tippy top of the loopdy-loop. Right SissyWright? ;) haha It seemed like we had just begun to get out of the loopdy-loop and were still twisting and turning and then another flip around and before I could even blink I wound up here in Billings. White knuckled and a little sick to my stomach from the roller coaster that had paused for just a brief second and then it was off again. Yknow those bunny hills? Yeah, those annoying little hills that toss you up and down so fast that your insides turn into a huge pile of mush? The past two months here have been a whole bunch of those. Not a lot of progress. Not a lot of new. Just a whole lot of ups and downs. But. I learned how to appreciate the bunny hills. Because even though it was a whole lot of small ups and downs and repetition, we still were doing the most important part. MOVING. This being my whole point of the roller coaster analogy: We're all on this crazy roller coaster called life- mine just happens to have a little subtitle "mission" haha. Like I said earlier. God knows what each of our journeys need to be. Who our seat-mates need to be. How fast we fly through or how slow we click to the top. He has it all worked out. We just need to strap in-hold on tight- and enjoy the ride. It doesn't make ANY sense to unbuckle your seatbelt- mid barrel role- and hop off the ride. Nope! That seatbelt...is the gospel. When we are firmly seat belted in with our testimony of the gospel- and continually check it and re check it as we are becoming more converted- we don't have to worry about how crazy the ride might be. Because we KNOW that we are safely tethered to the gospel and that if we have the right attitude, all we have ahead of us is a whole lot of fun. "Adam fell that men might be and men are that they might have JOY." So keep moving forward my friends on the roller coaster of life. I might just be ambitious enough when I'm home to try out the cannibal now ;) hahahaha

That turned out to be a lot more philosophical than I was planning. Hahaha take it or leave it ;)  #missionarymusings

I digress.

This week was super good! We are finally figuring things out with me medically. So. Happy. I went to the doctor on Tuesday and Sister Wadsworth came with me. So good to have a buddy. Haha I still hate going to doctors office SO MUCH. But anyway, got some blood work done and should get the results on Friday. Also. Totally didn't even pass out. THAT IS A MIRACLE MY FRIENDS. Counting my many many blessings. While I was at the doctor, Sister Hurst was on splits and went and visited R. She is a less active we have been teaching...but her records have been lost and so she has to be re-baptized! Kind of a crazy situation right? So that'll be in two weeks. I love R. She's so sweet. 26 years old, 4 kids under the age of 4, pregnant with her 5th, and the dad is no longer in the picture. She's amazing. Just had a rough life. But she got a job and she has lots of people helping her.

The highlight of the week was on Friday when we went to go and visit A. A has had a crazy past. He is currently living in a pretty sketchy trailer park and his life was pretty much in shambles when we found him. I'm not going to lie, I wasn't too keen on going back. But something kept telling us we needed to give him a chance. So with our Ward mission leader we kept visiting A, and I started to see a change happen. All the sudden his house wasn't so dark. The smoke wasn't so think. And he started telling us about the things he was learning in the Book of Mormon. All of this led up to Friday when we sat down and read Alma 36 with him. As we finished reading, he looked at us with tears in his eyes and told us how that chapter really touched his heart. He identified with Alma the younger and FINALLY saw the hope and potential he had. The spirit was stronger than I have EVER felt in my entire life. Amazing. It's moments like that that make every single hard moment worth it. I'd do it all over again and again and again to see someone realize the love their Heavenly Father has for them, just like A did.

Welp! I'm going to go play some laser tag now. ;) I love you all SOOOOO MUCH.

Love, Sissy Fletch

                    Quinn's letter. So. Stinkin. Cute. Makes me miss my ninja turtle shirt. haha.