A Sweet Letter

Dearest Familia y Friends...

According to preach my gospel, "Hope is an abiding trust that the Lord WILL fulfill his promises to you. It is manifest in confidence, optimism, enthusiasm and patient perseverance". Hope is the theme of my letter this week. I’ve been studying this attribute of Christ this week and the more I study it the more filled with hope I feel! Since returning to the mission field I have felt this joy in my heart just expanding so rapidly that sometimes I’m afraid it will burst! It’s not the happiness I felt before or the excitement of being home or not like anything I’ve ever felt, its real pure lasting gozo(joy)! Let me see if I can try and explain it. As I search for the ways the Lord has fulfilled his promises to me I am surprised by how quickly and abundantly I can find his blessings. When I was reset apart I received one of the most specific and beautiful blessings I’ve ever heard and I’d like to share a small part of it with you. I was promised that....

My healing would be continued and expedited...  every morning I’ve woken up without pain in my foot at all and been able to do a full normal work out. Last P-day we even played bola (soccer) for like 2 hours! Although I was sore by the end of the day... so was everyone else. This week we even hit a day of 25000 steps (10.5 miles) I always come home swollen but very rarely am I bothered by the pain.


My love for the people would be rekindled more powerfully... If you can believe it I’ve only been here 3 weeks and I already love the investigators, less actives, and members with all my heart. I can honestly look at them as my brothers and sisters. It makes me so sad when I see them not progressing, almost to the point of wanting to cry sometimes. I want, more then anything, for them to accept the gospel. I find joy in their smallest achievement and am as proud as any mom when they choose the right for themselves. Being a missionary has got to feel something like being a parent. You laugh with them, you teach them, you listen to them and comfort them, sometimes you feel frustrated when they’re obviously not listening to you... but as you watch them grow (spiritually in my case) you love them more each day.

I will be led to several homes and families who will accept the gospel... My companion and I teaching pool consists of almost pure families. (A "family" as constituted by the church is a mother, father and children). Anyone we teach who isn’t in a "family" has members of their family who are already members of the church. So it makes it much easier to teach. Not everyone is married, so were keeping our fingers crossed for a few bodas! (Weddings!!) Anyways, this week we had a super sweet teaching experience. We went to visit one of my favorite families and taught them the restoration by making a cheesecake! haha. We taught them that just like every ingredient is important in the recipe, every "ingredient" in Christ’s church was necessary. For example if you took out the sugar or the cream cheese it wouldn’t taste the same just like if you took out the apostles or the priesthood out of the church it wouldn’t be following the recipe and thus wouldn’t be Christ’s church. It helped the little kids to understand the concept and it was also fun and delicious for us!

My companion will be someone that I had a relationship with before the world was... I love Hermana Mendoza!!!! She is one of the most wonderful, sweet, kind people I’ve ever met. From the first day she and I just kind of clicked into our companionship. She is always serving me by making me breakfast or making my bed or getting up early to exercise with me. She never complains and she is always so smiley it’s impossible to be gloomy. This week we were walking home one night when she told me that she was so happy that I was her companion now because she used to not like being a missionary (she only has about 2 months in the field). She told me how her old companion hadn’t been very nice to her and made her cry a lot... I wanted to cry just listening to her! But she told me that now she loves waking up every morning and working together. It was very special.

Anyways, Gotta go...

All my love. Keep the Hope!
Hermana Kugath