New Families!

Dear Familia,

         The weeks are going by far too quickly! Sister Totau and I are doing

amazing here in Dry Creek. We met a woman this week who is a single mom with 7 kids and she is pregnant with her 8th. She works two jobs and you can imagine the stress that can come from that kind of life. When we first met with her...her head hung down low. She looked at the ground most of the time and when I asked her how she was she said, "As good as I'm gunna get." Something sinks in my chest every time I hear that. Mostly because I know that it CAN get better.  We had a lesson with her on Sunday and we had planned to teach something but ended up just talking for a little while about her life and the bad things that had happened to her. We were out of time but decided to have a prayer before we left. When we raised our heads from that prayer she was crying. She said she couldn't explain the way she felt but that she had never felt it before. It warms my heart to know that the spirit can speak to someone through any source. If it were left up to me, in all my imperfections, to do this work...there would NEVER be success. But as we rely on the spirit to testify of truth, even of the smallest things, miracles happen. There has been sooooooo many times where a baby is crying or we are teaching a lesson on a doorstep to someone blaring crazy profanity packed rap music that I just find myself praying that the spirit will touch them. That they will feel that feeling that’s been missing in their lives. I'm not sure if I told you about them last week or not but we also met a man with a wife and 4 kids. He is one big dude.  He was wearing this devils angel shirt and was out in his front yard when we came by.  We were on our way somewhere and so I reasoned with myself that we could keep on walking. When I had always passed by his house a little boy held my hand. He is about 4 years old and has autism. He grabbed a pamphlet from my hand about the "Plan of Salvation." His Dad walked over to tell him to leave us alone and we got talking. Come to find out...he had just had a stroke 5 months ago and was out of work.  It scared him to think he would leave his kids all alone. We taught about the Plan of Salvation and the strength that comes into your life through having that comfort. We are now meeting with his family and I am so excited!

         I am almost out of time but just remember how much I love you. Things are going great here and I am LOVING this area and the ward. There is still LOTS of work to do and I'll be honest, sometimes it’s a little

overwhelming...but I know this is where I am supposed to be. There are

members in this ward that I just...I don't know how to describe it.  But I am excited to be here and to share my testimony and to learn all I can. The mission office address that you have...is in my area. We actually pick up our mail from there so there would be no need to send it to a separate address. I love you soooooooooooo much! Have a great week! Oh! And from now on I will be emailing on Tuesdays instead of Mondays. The libraries in Rio Linda are closed on Mondays so all the missionaries in this area email on Tuesday. So we solved the problem Mammacita! Keep it real!

Love,

Sister Mitchell!