Fasting Brings Blessings

March 23, 2015

Hey family,

It's warming up here in Texas! And the humidity is getting intense. After a day of work, I come home and my hair looks like I just got out of the shower. It's going to be a muggy summer! But right now the weather is still nice, so I'm enjoying it before the true heat kicks in.

In the mission, you do a lot of fasting. We've done a lot of fasting lately, but I've learned to look forward to it because the Lord helps us so much while we fast! Fasting is hard and not exactly fun, but I love seeing all the blessings that come from it. For example, we are working with a family right now! We are teaching a mom and her 4 sons, and two of  the sons are baptismal age. We had been fasting that day to find a family, and then we found one! I love how quick the Lord answers our prayers sometimes. Ask and ye shall receive!

I love it here in Beeville. We are constantly busy and always have people we are working with. I feel so blessed to be working here. We have our challenges because the ward is super small (just graduated from being a branch), but the Lord is helping us out.

I hope y'all enjoy your week! Make sure to fast this Sunday (General Conference is coming up)! Watch for them blessings!

Love

Hermana Angus

Tender Mercies

March 16, 2015

Hey family,

Man, this week has been weird. I wrote last week about how one of the sisters in our apartment was super sick and couldn't go out and work in her area. Sister Ferguson and I had been taking turns going and working with her companion in their area, so that they could have contact with their members and investigators. It was really difficult because that meant I didn't work with Sister Ferguson for 5 days in a row, and that meant we couldn't work in our area as much as before. We were losing contact with investigators and we were just overwhelmed. Even though we weren't getting out to our area very much and I hadn't been with my companion for almost a week, I felt happy that I was helping the other sisters. It's true that you are the happiest when you put another person's needs before your own. Well, Sister Ferguson did not have the same attitude about it. She hated being stuck inside with the sick sister and frequently stressed that our area wasn't being worked. One night she broke down and cried and said she didn't want to help the sister anymore. She even said, "I'm sorry, I know this is wrong, but it ticks me off that you are completely fine and happy while I'm falling apart over the situation." As her trainer, I understood that this was super stressful for her, but I also knew that Heavenly Father understood that we were trying to make things work. I told her that I was happy because we were doing our best, even if it appeared that our best wasn't enough. I told her, "Sister, I'm sure Heavenly Father is going to help us make the most of the little time we have to work in our area." Sure enough, the next day, we had two hours to work in our area together and the coolest thing happened. We were sitting in our car praying before going out to knock on a door, and a car stops in the middle of the road. A guy rolled down his window and we recognized him as an investigator named Chris that we had lost contact with during this crazy week. He hadn't answered our phone calls all week, so we were super surprised to see him. He said, "Church girls! I haven't been ignoring you! I've been working all week, so I haven't called you back. In fact, I'm working right now. But I can meet you at the park in 30 minutes." It was a miracle!
Heavenly Father helped us make the most of the little time we had to work in our area. We reconnected with an investigator and now Chris is progressing.

This week was stressful, but I can see a ton of tender mercies of the Lord in this week! I'm so grateful that Heavenly Father is in control and is helping the work here in Beeville!

Love

Hermana Angus

Go to Church!

March 9, 2015

Howdy amigos,

This week has been crazy! Everyone has been sick here in my apartment but me (hallelujah), and I'm so grateful for health on the mission! I actually had to stay home with one of the sisters on Sunday, so I didn't go to church yesterday (she has a nasty case of the flu). Let me tell you, church is important. It just makes your week go better and recharges your spiritual batteries. I'm already feeling the whole in my week! AHHH! Missionaries should not miss church!!!!!

I'm so grateful for church! It's an awesome opportunity to come together and to support one another. Of course, partaking of the sacrament and learning more of the gospel is super important, too. But I just love the spirit of church, even when there are babies crying and kids fighting. It's great to see families there. There are a lot of old people in Beeville, so we joking call it the geriatric ward. haha. The elderly people here are hilarious! These people are very back-woodsy and look like they came out of Duck Dynasty. It's awesome.

I love Beeville and think this mission is so diverse. Every area is so different.

Anyways, I know the church is true and that we need to go to church! I will never take church for granted again! We need that spiritual pick-me up every week.

I love y'all! I'm excited for General Conference in a month! It's going to be awesome.

Love

Hermana Angus

Todavia estoy en Beeville!

March 2, 2015

Hola y'all!

I'm still in Beeville with Sister Ferguson! I'm happy that we're still together. We get along really well and I honestly love training. I hope I get to do it again during my mission.

This week was transfers, which means that we have a new sister in the apartment. I actually lived with this sister when I first came to the mission, and so I was really excited to see her again. Her name is Sister Cumberland. It has been 6 transfers (9 months) since I last lived with her. During the first few hours of being together again, Sister Cumberland said to me, "You are so different Sister Angus. You are so happy now. I can't believe how much you've changed. You seem so much more open." That was the highest compliment for me. It's hard to view change within yourself because it's so slow (and you're around yourself 24/7). Sometimes I wonder if I really am changing on my mission. Was I really being more obedient? Was I really becoming a leader?

It really helped to see that the things that I have been trying to change are actually happening. I do feel a lot more open recently and I am truly happy. Missions are awesome!

Love

Hermana Angus

Transfers . . . dun dun DUN!

February 23, 2015

Hey y'all!

Tomorrow we have transfers, and we still haven't heard if I'm leaving or staying. I would love to stay and continue training Sister Ferguson, so hopefully it goes my way! We were supposed to know about transfers yesterday, but I guess our mission president is receiving last minute revelation, and that's why we don't know transfers yet! I have learned a lot of patience through transfers. haha.

This week we helped build a house again and it was fun/scary. I love Beeville and how quirky it is. A ton of the members of the ward are best friends with Amish people. They are always helping the Amish out and driving them wherever they need to go. It's interesting, but I love my mission. Texas is awesome! I love y'all and I guess I'll tell you where I'm at in my next letter! Enjoy all that snow! :)

Love

Hermana Angus

Chocolate is Padre

February 16, 2015

Hola y'all,

How's the weather up there??? It's pretty nice here in Texas. Some days are colder than others, but overall it's nice. We bike a lot right now and it's fun.

Nothing too exciting happened this week, but I never knew the missionaries received so much love on Valentine's Day. We had members showering us with gifts (no complaints there)!

I read Ben's letters and I have to laugh about Ben's greenie getting hit by a car. That' super scary, but I love how his companion handled it. Talk about having a good attitude! haha.

This is the last week of the transfer. I think I'm staying in Beeville, but you never know. I will tell y'all next week.

I found Sister Ferguson's weakness. She is completely obsessed with chocolate. Whenever she is having a bad day, I can just give her chocolate and it completely changes her. She like those Snickers commercials. You're not you when you're hungry. haha. I'm not kidding, she goes from angry and overwhelmed to pleasant and optisimistic in like 2 seconds. It's super nice as a trainer, because I know how to fix every problem! haha.
Anyways, I love Beeville and I love my companion. We make a good team and I am so grateful that I am her trainer. I love being a trainer. It helps to have a great greenie, so she makes my job easy!

Texican word of the week: padre. It means awesome.

Have a padre week!
Love

Hermana Angus

Happy Valentine's Day

February 9, 2015

Dear family,

This week was great! Some awesome things that happened were:

1. Two people came to church on Sunday that we gave cards to one night! They looked up the church online and came to church! So cool!

2. We had an awesome Zone Meeting, which included chasing a possum into a field (I love Texas).

3. The work is on fire here in Beeville! Sister Ferguson look forward to every day because something super miraculous and cool happens every day. It's awesome.

4. The weather is hot again!

I hope you all have a happy Valentines day! I love you!
Love

Hermana Angus