HAS IT REALLY BEEN A YEAR?

Hello Everybody in the TRI-STATE area :)

As of this Thursday, I will be out on my mission 1 whole year. This is a scary thought to me. I have been out as a missionary twice as long then I have left on my mission. Now when I tell people that I have been out for a year, they will say "Oh wow! You are a seasoned veteran !" But I don't feel that way!

I feel like it was just yesterday that I entered the MTC...which was exciting and stressful and awesome. 

I feel like it was just yesterday that I was praying that I would be a good missionary once I left the MTC. I prayed that my trainer and I would get along and that we would have success in the work and being obedient. 

I feel like it was just yesterday that my flight touched down in Vegas and I was shocked by how much brown was all around me.

I feel like it was just yesterday that I met my trained Sister Furstenau and we had dinner together with the Soto Family and everyone spoke Spanish...but me. I remember her driving us home to the apartment that night and her explaining to me that she had just been trained and she didnt know a lot. I had no doubt that things would be just fine. I told her that I had been praying for her for 6 weeks.

I feel like it was just yesterday that I met Sister Parkinson, Sister Davis, and Sister Pantoja.

In this last year I have been so blessed to see many individuals become converted to Jesus Christ. As their lives have changed, my life has changed also. I would not trade this for anything. I would not trade the hard times and I especially would not trade the joyful times!

Ahhh!  Now about my week!

Monday: We had our last lesson with Amy and Thomas before they moved :( I will miss them and I hope that they will like their new town. We are hoping that we are able to send the referral to the next missionaries that are serving in their area so that they can continue with the lessons. I always love Mondays because we are able to email and do other things to get us ready for the week to come. I am also excited for Mother's day and to be able to skype my family. I LOVE MY FAMILY!!!!

Tuesday: We were able to see the wonderful Chervine :) We had Sister Ballard with us and it was an awesome, spiritual lesson. Lately her granddaughters have not been sitting in our lessons but that is okay because one day we will get them all together. Sister Ballard and Chervine get along really well! It is amazing what members can do in helping the work move forward. MEMBERS ARE AMAZING!!!!! :) We also had a lesson with our awesome investigator Frank and we had the Morris family come with us. The spirit was so strong in that lesson! I really hope he will be able to find his answer.

Wednesday: We were able to visit a member named Sister Cory :) She is super cute and her little baby girl is super tiny! She gave Sister p and I yarn so that Sister p could teach me how to crochet....moral of the story...I am not good at it. I would rather write letters in my personal time, but.....we have so much yarn now!!  Sister Cory loves to crochet and she has a lot of neat projects that she is doing right now :) We were also able to see the recent converts, Munoz family, they have the cutest little kids :) They always tell family secrets :)....like the story of Stinky Jeff.

Thursday: Today we were able to see our investigator Timothy who is getting baptized the 10th of May!! He is so excited. We then had dinner with the Richter family and we ate ta place called Las Pupusas and it was really good and interesting. I have never had authentic Pupusas from El Salvador! They were great! Mucho better than the Mexican version. We then saw Tim and Ashley!! I love them so much and they just got a new calling to be ward missionaries!!!! They are super excited!!!!!!! We were teaching them about Family History and helping Ashley get started on hers. They are also going to start going to the Temple to do baptisms! It is going to be a super exciting experience for her since this will be her first time in the Temple :) We then saw another one of our investigators, Norma. She is progressing well and wants her children to learn more too!

Friday: We saw Timothy again and taught him about going to church, praying everyday, and reading his scriptures everyday. I really hope his parents decide to come back to church one day. We then had dinner with the Ostlers and we went to a Chinese restaurant that I have never been to before...I got an asian chop salad..(mimi's is better mom!) Hehehe :) We also had another wonderful lesson with Frank and he had more questions for us :) He is really nice and always says thank you to us for taking time and teaching him.

Saturday: We received a member referral for a girl named Alexandra!!! We went by to contact her and she is so nice and open to listening! Member referrals are awesome! We are going to start teaching her today with the member and her mom! Later we went to see Frank with our newly called ward missionaries Tim and Ashley :) Tim went into missionary mode and Ashley shared a cool experience.  They are so wonderful! Then we went by to visit Nubia....she still has never come to church with us but we have had some wonderful lessons with her. She asked us how to pray in English because she only learned in Spanish and it was so wonderful because that was exactly what we were going to teach! It was such a miracle!

Now for "The Questions of your Soul"

How does it feel to be a missionary for 1 year?

Weird/crazy/fun/exciting/awesome/scary

What has been the greatest joy as a missionary?

Watching others come to realize that they are Children of God.

We went to the Gladys Knight performance in North Carolina and loved it!  Any experiences with missionary work that involved her performance in Las Vegas?

We found Chermayne and Dustin through the performance. They are awesome!

Well that was my wonderful week. Recently I have been studying in Preach My Gospel. I never get tired of reading the missionary lessons. I hope that you will all read Preach My Gospel too! Yay for missionary work :)

I love you all so much!!!!!

Love,

Sister Tucker :)

Hope you enjoy a few pictures from the past year!