I hope you all had a fun and a safe New Year! I loved seeing the pictures of the Burgess Family Reunion, especially of the mission list! That is so cool. I love thinking about how Grandpa Reid´s influence has been spread all over the world by his descendants who have served missions and served in the Church. And now with Uncle Dean´s new calling (I just found out and am seriously so excited for him and Aunt Anette!! That´s awesome!) missionaries all around the world, and in turn, their investigators, will be influenced by the faith of Reid Burgess.
You´re right Mom, I definitely got more sleep than any of you on New Year´s Eve! We had to be in the apartment by 6:00, so after planning we ordered a Domino´s pizza and watched ¨Mountain of the Lord¨. We threw the confetti that you sent me at 10; I told my companion we were celebrating New York time, like you always told us when we were little. Then on New Years Day we had a great activity with all of the sisters here in Durango. I realized during the activity how lucky I feel to be here in Durango, and in the Mexico Torreón Mission. There are only about 50 sister missionaries in the mission; 16 of us are here in Durango, and only 3 of us are Americans. (One of the other sister missionaries here, Hermana Holder, is from the Clawson´s home stake in California!) Anyway, during the activity we had a devotional on goal setting that was super powerful, and then a few other sisters and I made pancakes for everyone while the others played a few games. We ended by playing Assasin all together. It was a great day!
We also had companion exchanges with the Sister Training Leaders this week. Everything they taught us reallly helped Hermana Quispe and I set goals and make changes that will help our area. This week we found a few new investigators who are genuinely interested in the Church and we´ll be working with them a lot this week to help them prepare for baptism. I love this work, and I love all that it´s teaching me about how to really help people build a strong testimony. We had a family home evening last night with la familia Bermudez Guereca (Diana and Elvira, two recent converts, and Roque, Diana´s husband) and la familia Soriano Chacón (a young married couple who are members) and we talked about what a testimony is and how we strengthen ours. We read portions from President Uchtdorf´s conference talk from this October and I love that he said that we don´t need to be perfect or have a perfect testimony in order to go to Church. We go to Church to obtain a testimony. I know that we can only obtain a testimony of a principle by living that principle, which is why it´s so important that we read our scriptures, go to Church, pray, keep the commandments, etc. By small and simple things are great things brought to pass!
I love you all so much and hope you have a great week. I know that our Redeemer lives and that He loves us. I am so grateful to be a part of His work!
Love,
Hermana Southard
