The Gospel is Joy and Peace and Happiness

Shalom and Good Evening. It has been a week! I feel like I was emailing you yesterday.

Sister Henrie and I went to a trainer follow up meeting. We learned from the APs and the President and his wife. I got to see my MTC family. Yay! I love those humans!

We had exchanges . I got to be with Sister Langton and I got to stay in our area so I  was leading out the area which was new. This week for personal studies I studied a talk by Sister Bonnie H. Cordon, “Trust in the Lord and Lean Not.” Shout out to Julie for sending it to me. I love this talk. It gives two admonitions, a warning and what it calls a glorious promise. The admonitions are to trust and acknowledge him. The warning is to not lean but focus and stay centered on Christ. And his promise is he will direct our paths.  

On exchanges it was the first day of me driving a car in two months! Woot woot! No one died so all is good. Crazy spiritual moment I found out she was studying the same talk during personal studies. We contacted tons of people and gave out copies of the Book of Mormon. We picked up a new investigator and shared with her the Peace in Christ video. I don’t know if you have seen it, I never really watched those before but she loved it.

March 14th the Packards gave us strawberry pie for dessert because it was pie day. We got back together with Sister Richey and Sister Henrie and pie day was also Beau Richey’s 18th birthday. So to celebrate Beau’s birthday we wrote notes to other sisters in our zone and addressed them from heaven and gave them to them with yellow roses and yellow Happi pins. It was sweet. Be Happi live like Beau! We can be so full of joy and happiness! It is just beautiful! That was an awesome experience.

I studied “High on a Mountain Top” for a song this week. It gave me joy. I thought of my dad and a poem he gave me about not taking the easy paths. I thought of him and mom and Ema and Papa as I studied it, all of you who gave me such an appreciation for mountains and nature and the outdoors. You all are outdoorsy humans. Ah, Oh the beauties of the earth! I think of it as I stare at the ocean.

Shout out to Britta and Ben and Nick and Chris and Kate and Hannah! I went to sonic and got me some tater tots and a slushie.

We met a man named Marco who was amazed we leave our home and family to come out here and serve missions for a year and a half. He was just like, how do you live? How do you work? How do you pay for it? He was amazed by it and gladly took a Book of Mormon, promised to read it and said he wants us to answer his questions.

We went to the RS birthday party, which was fiesta themed. So much fun! I loved that day!

My cousin Josh Birchall is home!!! He is literally 20 minutes away from me. I am so proud of him and excited he is home from Russia. I can't go see him but tell him hi!

Saturday our lesson and mini missionary canceled on us so we went to Camp Pendleton and wandered around for a while to try find some less active members. There are so many cool things there. There are a bunch of tanks, helicopters and cool things like paintballing there.

We left and did more contacting.  I got hiccups for about ten minutes and could not get rid of them so I decided the only way that I would get rid of them was to teach the gospel. So I walked up to a man and with very broken spanish introduced ourselves and talked about the Book of Mormon and when we walked away, guess what, I no longer had the hiccups! So the church is true!

This week I also studied the hymn “Come Rejoice.” People, I just have to say, I love this song! It is all about happiness and joy and how the gospel can bring you joy. The verses it references is

D&C 128:19 Now, what do we hear in the gospel which we have received? A voice of gladness! A voice of mercy from heaven; and a voice of truth out of the earth; glad tidings for the dead; a voice of gladness for the living and the dead; glad tidings of great joy. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those that bring glad tidings of good things, and that say unto Zion: Behold, thy God reigneth!

The gospel is happiness, the gospel is joy! There are so many things in this world today that can make us so not happy. But why would we want to live like that? Why would we want to live in darkness and misery? So this scripture .. the gospel is joy and peace and happiness!

Sunday we got to leave the mission and go to San Diego and go to regional YSA conference which was awesome! I learned so much. We filled our minds with God’s truths. After that we had a linger longer which was fun because it was a bunch of YSA stakes.

This morning we went with our fellow sisters in our zone for Pday breakfast and made green food and had lucky charms. We ahd a fun auction with things like candles and gatorade and silly stuff like that. Sister Richey and Sister Langton would ask "How much are you willing to pay for this?" After a while they started to ask things like, "How much are you willing to pay for her?" referring to our companions. We were like oh wow. Then they led us in an awesome discussion about how much Christ loves us and how much he was willing to pay for us, for our sins and our sadness. It was a good morning with awesome people!

Have a great week! See ya, love ya, bye!