WEEK 13

Buenas tardes everyone,

Transfers are tomorrow, but my companion and I are both staying here. I'm glad because I love Culpeper!!!

So probably the most exciting thing that happened this week was that the Spanish Elders' investigator, Jesus, was baptized!! It was really cool. I was asked to speak at the baptism, and I tell you, miracles are real.  Every day is just so busy that I hardly had any time to prepare, but I had an idea of what I wanted to talk about so I just got up there and spoke!
I know it was the Spirit helping me, because there's no way I could have done that on my own! Also, since the baptism was in Spanish, and most of the people in attendance spoke English, we had to translate. My companion did most of it, but I tried a little. And then I freaked out and let her do it again because it's so hard. But it was good! Jesus is such a sweet guy. He bore his testimony and it was just so heartfelt and humble. He said he couldn't describe how he felt, and he felt so blessed. When he was confirmed in church yesterday, he said he cried. He is so cool! It's really sad though because both of the Spanish elders are getting transferred, so that might be really hard for him. But we get to teach him when they leave so I'm excited about that!

Well, I'm out of time but I just want to let everyone know that the Gospel is true! My testimony of the restored Gospel is strengthened every single day. I love the Lord and I believe in His miracles! And His timing is perfect. Not easy, but always perfect.

Have a wonderful week!

Hermana Eddington

Dirt Roads

WEEK 12

Hola everyone,

It was a good week. I felt better than last week, so that was a tender mercy. Again, thank you for all of your prayers because I know they help me every single day :)

I know this is where I'm supposed to be and what I'm supposed to be doing right now. I've been learning so much on my mission. I'm learning about people- how to get along with them, how the experiences of people shape who they are and how they think. I've been learning to better follow the promptings of the Spirit and how I personally feel the Spirit. I've been learning about myself and it's been so cool and enlightening to view my patriarchal blessing with a mission perspective. I've learned to be kinder and more patient with myself.

The most important thing I've been learning is how blessed I am to have knowledge of the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. That used to just be a phrase for me but now it has so much meaning. My mission experience is allowing me to be more grateful for how blessed I am.

So, I just got back from a little drive in the beautiful Shenandoah national park! A really nice member in one of the wards we cover offered to take us because it was free admission today. It was so cool! I know I've said it before, but you'll probably keep hearing it every week- Virginia is SO beautiful! It's just pure paradise- straight off a postcard. The countryside, the trees, the farms, wild
flowers, little picturesque houses and churches everywhere with the blue ridge mountains in the background... everyday I am still amazed at how lucky I am to be here. It is just so amazingly gorgeous and perfect.

The people we work with are so amazing too. I am so blessed to be working with the people here. Hispanics are so loving and trusting. We're just these two gringas that come in and try to speak their language and they hardly even know us, but they open up to us about everything and they're so kind to us. And they are so hospitable too! You know they like you when they offer you at least a water bottle at the end of talking to them. But sometimes we get juice too! Haha

This week we got one of our less actives to mutual! Small victories! We also met this really cool lady from Puerto Rico. She's really nice but she talked so, so fast. I was having a hard time keeping up. We're meeting with her tonight so hopefully that goes well.

Speaking of Spanish, I'm getting better. Sometimes I step back and I'm like, "Woah, wait I just understood someone speaking Spanish over the phone and I spoke back to them without help from my companion?!" Haha. Understanding people in Spanish over the phone is so hard. But I'm getting better! I used to have no idea what they were saying.

We had a lesson with Jacky and Leonardo this week, and we watched the Restoration with them and I was stressed out the whole time because the video was super bad quality and stopping and pausing and I was thinking, "Ahhh I really hope they are understanding this!!" Afterwards, we talked to them more about the Book of Mormon. It was a pretty long lesson, and between that and the video, and my disjointed teaching in Spanish, and the baby crying and making a fuss, I wasn't sure if we had made any impact. But they seemed fine and Leonardo asked us if we were allowed to go to restaurants and we said yes, and he asked if we wanted to go to Chick-fil-a with them, and they would pay for us. We had an appointment after so we couldn't go, and we felt bad because it was so sweet of them to offer that! I was so touched. Again, these two random gringas that they hardly know, trying to teach them and they offer to pay for our dinner! These people.

We didn't have anyone come to church this week again :( It's seriously so hard to get people to church. But it's ok, this week! One of the Spanish Elders' investigators is getting baptized this week so that's really exciting!

Well, so much more happened, but that's all I got time for. Thank you so, so much for all of your prayers and love, and letters, and packages. I can't remember if I mentioned this last week, but thank you to everyone who sent me birthday cards!!! :)

Have a great week!

Hermana Eddington

Hi Dad! I love you so much! I'm sorry I haven't gotten you the statistical and logistical info you've wanted. I don't have much time but I'll try to answer them quick!

1. Yes, President allows tracting. But we don't do it a lot because we are busy with people we're teaching, visiting recent converts, less actives, and the driving time.

2. We're teaching about three non-members solidly. But we teach more that we don't see as often, and we have less active members that we teach.

3. Yeah, most of the Hispanics we teach speak little to no English.

The only non-Hispanics we teach are less actives that we've been asked to see from the ward.

It's getting green here and yes I am in a constant state of bliss!

I love you so!!!

This is Jacky from Honduras and her son
Dominique. He's one of the cutest babies ever
 and she is so sweet! We love her, and she
 and her esposo are kind of fascinated with us.

We went exploring in downtown Culpepper last Monday...
there are just too many cute churches everywhere!

The Pacheco girls- they are some less actives we
are working with and they are SO cute. They are
like my sisters. Their parents are from Guatemala
but the kids speak English. I love them so much.

WEEK 11 - God is Good!

Hola!

Again, I kinda feel like a year just happened and I don't know where to begin. But I think today I'll talk about what I've been learning. So missions are hard and I think everyone either knows that or has heard that. They are completely amazing, and fun, and awesome, and so totally worth it, but they are also hard. I think the reason why a mission is hard varies from person to person, but one of the hardest things for me is that I'm not in my "comfort zone" with my "comfort people". And I know that sounds kind of trivial but it's really hard for me, as I'm a person who loves being comfortable! So I haven't had the support system around me that I'm used to and that's been really hard.

I'm sharing this because I want to be honest and I want to show how I have been strengthened by Heavenly Father during this time.

So when I started struggling, I eventually turned to Heavenly Father because he was the only person who understood how I felt. I would pray and pray for an answer as to what I should do about certain things, and I wasn't getting anything. I was getting pretty frustrated, but I  kept on going because I knew it was what I had to do. But I just kept wondering why Heavenly Father wasn't helping me like I wanted Him to. I kept telling myself He was there, and I knew He was, but I just couldn't really feel it.

But here's what I have learned- even when it seems like Heavenly Father isn't close to us, He is. What keeps us from feeling Him near can be our pride, or it can be because He's trying to test us a little bit. In my case, it was a combination of both. But looking back on this past week and on my mission so far, I can see how merciful and good Heavenly Father has been to me every day. Sometimes I have to be patient to see Him bring about things, or to get an answer, but things ALWAYS get better. Always. 

I have such a testimony of God's timing. His timing is perfect. It's not always easy. And it's not always comfortable. But it's always exactly what we need. I am so grateful for a loving Father who can see the big picture. I'm so grateful for someone who can see everything that's ahead of me, and gives me what I need to be prepared for what He has in store for me. He is so sweet to me. I feel His comfort every day. I am so grateful.

I'm sorry if that was depressing, but it's really been a wonderful learning experience for me. It hasn't been easy but I am grateful for that, because I've learned so, so much. I hope everyone has a wonderful week. Thank you for all your prayers. I know they are heard and I know that they are blessing me and my investigators- because the miracles that I have been seeing would not be possible without my Savior and Heavenly Father, and all of your sweet prayers.

Thank you so much!

Hasta luego-
Hermana Eddington

Just another day in the most beautiful place in the world.

I promise, I was playing earlier.

Zone P-day after we ran a 5K

WEEK 10 - Ay ay ay

Ay ay ay.

That's one of my new favorite things to say in Spanish now. Mostly because my vocabulary is still limited, and when I don't know what to say and things are kind of crazy, that's what I say. It's pretty applicable to most situations and a pretty accurate description of this week.

Ay ay ay! Where do I even begin? I find myself in this position every p-day because I feel like I'm looking back on a whole year! It's going by SO fast but at the same time, I look back and so much has happened and I feel like it was forever ago!

But anyway, one of our cute investigators, Evelia, is slowly but surely progressing!!! She always agrees with what we teach her, and she reads the chapters we give her, and feels good about it all, but every time we talk about baptism, she's still not quite sure. Which is totally fine, it's just hard because I know she's feeling the Spirit and I've already seen her change- she's always so happy now! So anyway, we had a lesson with her this week, and she asked us how we do baptisms. My companion and me were so excited because she was the one who brought it up! We invited her to be baptized on April 16th and she's still not sure- she wants to be really sure before she makes a decision. But she seemed a little more willing to work towards it thinking of it as a goal than she has been in the past so that was awesome! The closing prayer she gave at the end of the lesson was so sweet- she thanked Heavenly Father for us and how she knew He existed before, but now she's learning more about Him and His word. It was so sweet. 

She loves feeding us, she's so cute. She made really good taquitos and then a few nights ago she made this soup with crab in it. Not like little pieces of cut up crab but like whole parts of a crab!! It was crazy. I just couldn't bring myself to try it. I pushed myself and ate salmon this week but crab was just too much!!! It was so cute though, because she made me a quesadilla instead.

With another one of our investigators, Jacky, we made food! She taught us how to make tortillas and she made salmon and pico and served it with Honduran crema. I love her- I can't wait until she comes to church! Cool story about her- after one of our lessons with her this week, we gave her Alma 32 to read. And she was like, "I've heard of Alma before!" And we were like "uh what? Where?" And she said her dad told her about him, and how we was "a defender of the poor" or something like that. It was so cool!!! I can't wait to teach her about how she probably knows that because the people in the Book of Mormon are her ancestors! That was so cool.

Conference was AMAZING. I was looking forward to it all week. Ah, conference is just one of the best things ever. I loved the themes of humility, the temple, strengthening families, and making choices. Usually in conference when they talk about children and families, I don't always think it applies to me, but this time, I was prompted to think of my investigators as my "children". It was so cool with that mindset!! I also loved how bold and fearless the speakers were. Some of the things they talked about were not popular or politically correct, but that just strengthened my testimony even more of how this is Heavenly Father's church, not a church of the world. 

I read 1Thessalonians 2:4-6 this morning and it reminded me of what was said at conference. I'm so, so, so grateful for the leaders in the church and for our Prophet, and I know that what they teach us is what Heavenly Father wants us to know. Yes, it's very different from what the world tells us, but it is still right and true and it is still Heavenly Father's will for us! Elder Hallstrom's talk explained the concept of our identity that is not of this world so beautifully.

Also, after the last session of conference I felt prompted to ask the Bishop for a Priesthood blessing. I kept ignoring it and ignoring it and then I finally listened. The blessing gave me much needed comfort and guidance. I'm so grateful that Heavenly Father is so patient with me even though I'm so stubborn!!

Well, that's about all I have time for. I hope everyone has a wonderful, wonderful week.

I love my Savior, Heavenly Father, and I love being a missionary!!!!

Hermana Eddington

Crab soup.