"As I have loved you, love one another"

Well, I'm still allergic to gluten and corn ...

Don't worry, it wasn't too bad. Just a little heart burn and inflamed insides. I didn't have the heart to tell this lady I couldn't eat her enchiladas and peach cobbler. Luckily I ate only a little and avoided as much of the bread part in the cobbler as I could, then covered it with my napkin and cleared my place. You'd think I would've learned my lesson to remind people I have food allergies after the peanut incident... but guess not. Ha!

So we found another centipede on Monday night. I was peacefully drifting off to sleep as I hear a voice from the bathroom, "Sister Wallace, there's another centipede!!!" I walk over all disoriented and blurry visioned and Hermana Babcock tells me to go get a knife. Yes, we cut a centipede in half. And yes, it was still moving. I think I'm ready for winter now.

On Tuesday my fav cowboy, Brother Senior, told me I needed to get me some Wranglers because they are better than Levi's. When I asked why he said it was because they are 6 dollars cheaper and they last longer. Also he told me I needed to get me some boots. I told him as soon as I get home I would, haha. Which, honestly, the longer I'm out here, the more I kinda wanna be a cowgirl. He told me I just can't get pink cowgirl boots because then I wouldn't be a real cowgirl. I. Love. Him. So. Much. He is just one of the sweetest, most humble people I've ever met. I know his health isn't good, and I'm really sad. He has the sweetest testimony. All he had to say in our lesson the other night was "I know that Jesus died for me" and the most powerful spirit filled the room. He has told us we are never allowed to leave because his granddaughter has never liked missionaries as much as she likes us, haha. Every time we see him he's like "now did you talk to your mission president about staying here?"

This week Trinity and Betty Jo had me hang up some pictures. As I stood on the step ladder I hear this giggling behind me. Well, there's my fav old ladies just smiling and laughing about me because "I'm just so cute." Seriously they just stared at me. Little weirdos.

We had a pretty wild experience the other night while we were street contacting at a park. I had left my usual Book of Mormon at the Seniors, and so I grabbed a brand new one from the car to carry around with me. Well we see this guy and he starts talking to us and asks if we were gonna read him something. So obviously, I did, haha. He's very religious and told us he respected us for our courage, but wouldn't be interested in hearing a message because he would always go back to what felt like home. In that moment I was inspired to say two different things, but before I could, he looked at me and is like "now I know you have the fire in you, and you just want to be like 'Jessie stop talking' and that she (pointing to Hermana Babcock) is your mentor there to cool you down and keep you calm." So apparently I look like the immature one haha. But hey, I got the fire! Now we joke all the time about "my fire."

But anyway, back to what I felt inspired to say. I told him that people I've taught have felt the same as him, but as they've come to church, they've realized that the Church of Jesus Christ does feel like home, and they want to keep coming back. Then I handed him the Book of Mormon and challenged him to read from it and pray about it, and if he got the answer it wasn't true, he never had to call us. But if it was, to call us. So far nothing has come from it, but it was still a cool experience for me to see how Heavenly Father places us in areas for us to meet certain people. And for some reason that day, I needed to have a brand new copy of the Book of Mormon instead of my very loved copy. And as Jessie even said himself, we planted a seed. You never know what can happen.

And now we get to the song lyrics for of this week's blog post title. We had exchanges on Friday which was sooo fun. (exchanges are when you work with a different companion other than your assigned one for the day). Hermana Brown is so freaking sweet, and I learned so much from her. She is a solid missionary and an OYM (open your mouth) queen. She really pushed me to just talk. I've been kinda fearful to speak up, and she taught me that you just need to go for it. But anyway, we had the coolest, most spiritual experience ever, and it all happened in an Applebees.

We went to dinner with the Smiths and the Paynes (aka my fav people) for Sister Payne's bday. Well, Brother Payne is also a pro at OYM (probably because he's been a mission president before). He told the waitress that we had a very good message to share with her and that she should meet with us. Well, the lady goes "actually I just moved here and have been looking for a church." Well, I don't know if I've mentioned this, but Brother Payne LOVES Doctrine & Covenants 25:12, which says

"For my soul delighteth in the song of the heart; yea the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me, and shall be answered with a blessing upon their heads."

When he was a mission president, he encouraged all his missionaries to sing because music brings the spirit. So he also told the waitress we would sing to her. Well, later on all these workers come to sing "Happy Birthday" to Sister Payne. After the song, as they were all about to leave, Brother Payne puts his hands out and goes "wait, wait, now these ladies have a turn to sing." Well we start singing "Love One Another" and I'm not kidding when I say the spirit filled the entire restaurant. Before we sang, the background music was so loud, and the second we started, you literally couldn't hear anything else. The whole restaurant was just quieted. It was so cool. And you could just tell these waitresses were feeling the spirit, even if they didn't know that they were themselves. Agh so cool.

In case you're not familiar with the song, it is short, sweet, comes right out of the New Testament, and is one I learned when I was little in primary. It's also in our hymn book and goes like this -

"As I have loved you, Love one another. This new commandment: Love one another. By this shall men know Ye are my disciples, If ye have love One to another."

You can listen to it here if you want to know what we were singing ...

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/music/library/childrens-songbook/love-one-another?lang=eng

As we were leaving, Hermana Brown had us go get the waitresses phone number. As we walked back, we realized she was hurriedly writing it down on a napkin for us because she saw we were leaving. So everyone please pray Judy will answer us. Because she was so rad and the spirit touched her that night in Applebees.

It was a good week. We had some fun moments in the rain, ate at the cutest, yummiest place called Europa, I finished reading the Book of Mormon again (i prayed and its still true), and I found out Kathy from my last area still prays for me by name. The weeks just keep flying by and little by little, miracles are happening in God's work. Hermana Brown reminded me that just like we need faith to plant, we need faith to harvest. We have to believe that there are people ready to accept this message, and go to the temple. Because ultimately, I want these people to have a forever family just like I do. The more time I spend away from my family, the more I realize just how grateful I am for them and the comforting knowledge I have that we are sealed together forever. But I think I do lack that faith sometimes, and it's a constant learning experience to try and develop it.

I hope you all know just how much God loves you. We truly are His children, and Satan tries his hardest to get us to forget we are children of God, and that others around us are children of God too. Don't let him lie to you. He sucks.

Like always...

Don't forget that Jesus loves you,

Sister wallace

Pics

1. Our fav book lol

2. Us at Europa

3. My yummy lunch I made of zucchini, GF pasta, and super good sauce.

4. My DELISH food at Europa. So good. It was ham with an apricot Dijon sauce, green beans, and butternut squash

5. Me and Hermana Brown in our POG (play of the game) t-shirts. It's a weird inside joke in our zone that I don't even understand

6. When you can't jump...