"August slipped away into a moment in time"

According to my sister, these t swift lyrics are super trendy right now. Here I was thinking I was clever, but the world was one step ahead. But hey, I'm not on tik tok, so I had no clue!

This has been a wild and quick month. I've noticed that ever since I've gotten to this area there has been at least one thing every day where God is reminding me I need to be here. He knows how sad I was to leave Los Lunas, so I think he is giving me a few extra tender mercies, haha. I wanna tell you 3 of these tender mercies, so here we go . . .

The first was Tuesday night. That morning, we were deciding who we should contact, and as I was going through our record of people, I found the name of a woman taught years ago. I was immediately drawn to her name and knew I wanted to reach out. So we called and no one answer. I decided that we needed to go give her a visit, and she just happened to be in the area we were planning to be in for street contacting. Funny how that works out. We knocked on her door and the unthinkable happened; the lady actually came out and talked with us! I ask how life had been and she proceeded to tell us she just lost her mom to ALS. For those of you that don't know, I lost my granddad to the same disease almost 2 years ago. I immediately connected with her and felt so much love for her. The spirit reminded me of a scripture verse a good friend sent me while I struggled with my granddad's diagnoses that referenced the resurrection and when we will all have perfect bodies (Alma 40:23). I was able to read this verse to her, and we had a great conversation. She has such a great attitude toward life in general and was so unique and so cool. I could just feel the light of her spirit so easily. I walked away shocked and so full of gratitude. Heavenly Father led me to someone He knew I would be able to connect with. I was reminded of how He really knows each of us individually. He knew I needed a confirmation once again that this is His work and that great things can happen when He is in charge.

Next tender mercy happened on Friday. That morning, I had the simplest thought to workout outside instead of inside our apartment. I just did laps around the outside of the pool. Haha get it. As I was jogging, this lady walks into the complex and she was all hunched over so I just waved at her while she walked into her apartment. Well a few laps later she comes back out and we start up a whole convo. Turns out her name is Diane and she starts opening up to me all about life like we were old friends. I told her about how we were missionaries, she asked me to pray for her daughter, and that was it. Well, the whole rest of the day I could not stop thinking about her, just wishing I would've grabbed her phone number. Well fast forward to the evening, our original plans were to do some street contacting around the area of the family we ate dinner with. But as we left, I looked at Sister Hardman and was like, "I gotta pee so we're gonna have to go back to the apartment." Haha! Luckily, she was in the same boat. So we walked into our complex and who just happened to be sitting right in front of us? Diane!! We started talking and ended up having almost an hour discussion that transitioned so smoothly into the gospel. Suddenly we were talking about angels and church, and then inviting her to read the Book of Mormon. She just kept asking questions, and the whole time we talked, I just kept thinking "man there's something special about her." As we left, I told her that I believe God puts certain people in our paths and that we needed to meet each other. Walking away I felt so much joy that God let me have that experience, all because I wanted to get out of our stuffy apartment that morning and do "laps" around a pool.

Alright last one. Amara. We had 15 minutes to street contact before a lesson, so we pulled up at a park and we were setting a goal. Sister Hardman said we could get one phone number, and I seriously doubted that it was possible. But she was confident in it, so we just went for it. Haha! Well, God sure showed me up because the first person we talked to ended up giving us her phone number. She was super cool and chatted with us for a good while. She said she is super open to exploring different churches and wants to find where she fits in in the religious world.

In all honesty, who even knows if any of these stories will result in having new people to teach. And even though that would be so great, I don't think I care because all these experiences built my faith so much. I was shown that God is so aware of me right now and wants me to find joy in this new area of my mission. He is giving me these experiences to motivate me to just open my mouth and talk with everyone, doing what I came here to do- tell people about Jesus!

Once again, I enjoyed participating in the Sacrament twice. Didn't love having sunday school twice but thats ok, haha. This week felt extra special as I've been extra aware of what the Sacrament truly means and how we can make it more meaningful. In a worldwide missionary devotional this week, Elder Bednar talked that when the bread is broken, it represents Christ's broken body. He also pointed out that when the bread is broken, each piece looks different, reminding us that the sacrament is individual. That Christ's atonement is individual. The Sacrament is meant to help us contemplate on our Savior and the pain He went through for every one of us. It is meant to provide us with the spiritual cleansing we so desperately need in a really confused, scary world. I may not know every detail about what the world looks like right now, but I know enough to say that people really need peace right now. Sadly, sometimes the importance of this gets swallowed up in tradition and distraction during our worship services with last-minute announcements like "the stake young women are putting on a hoedown this weekend." But when we really think about it, we need church wholly because we need the Sacrament. We need that time to think about our baptismal covenants with Christ, about what He did for us, and about how He can bring us peace, light, forgiveness, and joy.

I've said it before, mission life isn't perfect. Just like normal life, there's lots of routines and seemingly mundane things. But as I focus on the good, I recognize more and more that this is exactly where I need to be.

Don't forget that Jesus loves you,

Sister Wallace

Pictures

Didn't really take a whole lot this week haha but here are some pics... I'll do you a favor and not include the one I took of a gnarly bruise I have so I could show my mom.

1. CHICK FIL A CHOCO SHAKE

2. Got myself a haircut and didn't have any other pics

3. My Chipotle for lunch today (Monday) lol