Thanksgiving was Wonderful!

Hello Family!!

So great to hear about your holiday and your awesome races! Way to go! And WOW Maren Hale (Maren was just called to Megan’s same  mission)  is a friend of mine from my ward last year, she was one of my FHE group leaders and the little sister of one of my best friends in the ward! Wow, I can't wait to see her :)

This week was another grueling and amazing week. The demanding schedule of service all day and proselyting all night is starting to take its toll, but I am still happy to do it :). We have all had to back off a little bit, for all of our back's sakes. That is one good thing about having all these member volunteers come in on the weekends--fresh blood and backs ha-ha.

Thanksgiving was wonderful. We got up and went to Flushing  Meadows Corona Park (it has the big globe from  the “Men in Black” movie) to play football with a few other zones. It was a lot of fun and amazing to run around and play outside ( I forgot how much I loved the smell of turf.) Our zone came all dressed in crazy ties and we looked good.  I will send pictures. After football, a group of Latinos challenged us missionaries to a soccer game. The missionaries ran out of players so they invited me to join (they were desperate ha-ha). It was a lot of fun and I held my own.  I even stole the ball a couple times. As one of the elders told me,"You just ruined that kids day" ha-ha. I guess BYU 4th ward soccer prepared me for my mission ha-ha.

This week all of our service has been in Far Rockaway, and it is the "hood." We definitely are the only white people walking the streets. I love it and I’m meeting a lot of interesting people. I am really learning the power of loving and serving people different than me. This past week we helped a lesbian couple (at least I was pretty sure they were) clean out their house,. They were very grateful and it was a privilege to serve them. They invited us over for a cookout next summer when the house is restored :) On Saturday we helped a Mr. Washington from South Carolina. He was a big black man with a large cross on a chain around his neck. He is probably one of the most humble and good hearted men I have ever met. When we first got there, the members and missionaries from the North mission (they came to help out), began to take the lead and such. (It is really funny being a sister missionary because no one takes you seriously when it comes to cleaning out basements, even when you have been dedicating your whole life to it for the past month). I finally pushed my way through and told Mr. Washington what needed to be done with  the dry wall (how you have to take 4ft out because mold grows up, how any furniture touched by the water must be cut out or thrown out etc. etc.). He looked at me  and said excitedly, "Dang girl! You Smart! You know wha' chu' doin'! I like you!" And then we got to work.  

As we were working Mr. Washington went around repeating over and over "alleluia amen!" Sis Simplicio had a great talk with him and he bore his testimony to us about his relationship with God and how we were a literal answer to his prayer. It was beautiful and felt really good. When we ended, he sang us a song. It was beautiful and full of soul. We then sang "I am a child of God" for him and the spirit entered into the room so powerfully. It was neat.

It is crazy how the Lord is blessing us to know what to do. Turns out that FEMA approached our APs and wanted to know how we do our work orders so they could model their system after ours.

I love you all.  The Spirit is real! Our church has a direct connection to heaven, as well as the authority to act in God's name on earth through the Priesthood.

Megan