All of Me!!!

My dear dear DEAR DEAR DEAR FAMILY!!!!

This week I decided I did not have enough humor in my life. The cafeteria in the MTC is like a middle school cafeteria, where everyone clears their trays and leaves the food on they don't eat. So I wait until there are a lot of people around and take a huge bite off of a random piece of half-eaten cake on someone else's plate and just look around absolutely innocently as other people are like......whattttt the........I may come home looking like a blog, and I expect anyone who claims to be my friend to make me eat carrots and celery for a year.

Anyways, this week was, my goodness, what was it?! It was wonderful. I just have such a testimony that the Lord sustains His missionaries. Some nights I'll get up after 3 hours of sleep because I can't sleep here and get to work, and somehow I'm not tired all day. I wake up ready and it doesn't generally feel hard. The Lord makes the impossible possible. For sure for sure.

I told one of my good friends here that my dad used to always grab my hand and squeeze it 3 times for "I LOVE YOU." So now, when she can tell I'm getting a little sad, she'll grab my hand and squeeze it. Then we swap stories and eat cake off of plates and feel better. Really, this girl and I are best friends. She has 14 kids in her family, all of who served missions and went to grad school and are raising families. WHAT?! She tells us stories about growing up, and her mom is a freaking saint. I've found that whenever I'm sad, if I lose myself in a conversation with someone, it's hard not to feel better.

This week, me and Sister H. taught a lesson to this man who wanted to improve his relationship with his wife. I told him in very broken Portuguese to clean the bathroom for her once a week. Duh, what else? I didn't know men didn't know these things about marriages. We also taught a lesson this week to our teacher who was a mock investigator. He had planned out a really hard lesson, where he was going to question things he knew we couldn't talk about. Cool, huh? Well we got into the lesson, and the Spirit was there so strong. He was very quiet, and just kept agreeing with everything we were saying. He later told us that he melted....that every wall he had put up was gone because he felt how much we meant what we were saying. Experiences like that are so rewarding. I can't speak your language, I really miss my mom, I'm wearing a freaking skirt every day of my life, but I know that Jesus Christ is your Savior, and I know that He loves you. Telling people that just...mm...it just feels so right.

One of my teachers called me in this week just to chat. She sat across from me, was quiet for a while, and said: "Sister Brooks, I just needed to let you know today how much Heavenly Father loves you." She started crying and I just felt this love enter the room. It was only for a second, but it made my whole week. Heavenly Father just let me know how much He loved me, how He was going to help me, and how He approved of what I was doing. Rarely have I felt the Lord's approval that strong, and it was the most motivating feeling. 

I then left the room and became fluent in 6 languages.

It's wild how quickly you love people here. I just love my companion. I love my district, and my friends, and my teachers, and the random girl this week who couldn't stop crying because she hated this place so much. You just LOVE everyone. To show my love, I decided with the girls in my zone to have a little picnic. On Saturday night, we all blew all our money on snacks and sat on the ground eating and swapped stories of middle school days. They now all think I am strange, but we definitely had good bonding times.

Our Saturday Night Picnic

Last night, the Elders in my district talked for about an hour straight about how to re-write the Toy Story script to make the story more intense.

What? 

The church is true. They come back mature. 

I finished my Book of Mormon in the temple this morning:) What a cool experience. I'm starting over today and marking everything that has to do with the character of Christ. I want to know Him better.

By far, the coolest experience of my week happened on Saturday afternoon. I was so discouraged. I was tired and sad and just feeling the weight of my human weaknesses, and this mission task dealy seemed so big and daunting. I got up and went into the bathroom and kneeled down and prayed, more fervently than ever before. I told the Lord that I had faith in Him, that I knew He was listening, and that I was doing this for Him. I told Him I needed help, I needed a lot of it, and I told Him that I would do whatever it took to get so much faith that we could have the type of relationship I needed right now with Him. 

I've always trusted the Lord with most everything other than myself. I decided when I was praying that I shouldn't limit His power by accepting my weaknesses for what they are. He promises that if we have enough faith, He'll help us make our weaknesses strengths. I realized that the Atonement is powerful enough to change my heart. I prayed for a really long time, and I made the decision to love every day of my mission, because He wants me to be happy, and I want to as well:) His power isn't limited...He can help me and will help me everyday. I stopped praying and listened and listened and I just felt Him say to me: "You, Kaylee, you are in the right place." 

So now, I decided to give myself to Him, the weaknesses and all. It will take my whole life, I have no doubt:) But I trust Him, more and more everyday. And I am so grateful to be here, so grateful. Conference, reading the scriptures, studying, relationships, EVERYTHING about this experience is absolutely enriched by the Spirit. I've never wanted anything so much in my life than to be worthy to have the Spirit, and to have enough faith that the Lord will heal my heart.

I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH ALL I WANT TO DO EVERYDAY IS PRAY FOR EVERYONE I KNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you for your letters:):) They make me laugh. And sometimes I cry. But I'm a Sister missionary, and apparently that's just what we do.

Yours!!!

Kaylee

Our Classroom!!!

Me and some of my New Besties!