Human Orbits

Okay first of all, I feel that I should apologize for my email last week. We were really short on emailing time and I have since realized that I used 99% of that time talking about the pointless fact that my inner voice is Italian. I promise that most of my thoughts and actions are centered on more important missionary-related things. Except sometimes the really nonsensical stuff spills out. And sometimes that nonsensical stuff is Italian.

So yesterday I was totally sick. :( Which was a bummer for a couple reasons:

1. It's really hard to missionary work when you are alternately throwing up and sleeping for 24 hours.

2. We have another mini missionary with us this week (HOORAY!) and it wasn't a super ideal picture of what missionary life is like for her first day with us. I felt the need to keep emphasizing that being a missionary usually involves less laying on the ground moaning and more helping people come closer to Christ.

3. I had to miss church and Sister Roy and our mini said it was SO. GOOD. (Side note: our mini's name is Kyla and she is sooooo adorable. She's 17 and gonna be a senior this year. She's from a beach town in Rhode Island and wants to go to Stanford and help Africans have clean water. #awesome)

But like a million people helped take care of me, so that was really nice. A bunch of different sister missionaries came to babysit me through out the day, and the elders and our ward mission leader showed up to give me a blessing and Sister Roy made me some really good soup. And all of their love  miraculously nursed me back to health! My Bishop suggested that Sister Roy probably poisoned me to insure that she would get a new companion next transfer ... thanks for the vote of confidence Bishop.

Aaaaaaaanyways, besides my recent sickness/poisoning, the past couple weeks have been really super awesome. Our area is finally getting busy and it makes my heart swell with joy! A lot of the really exciting potential stuff that we've been hoping and praying and crossing fingers and toes for since me and Sister Bringhurst opened is finally pulling through. It's amazing to be able to see the hand of the Lord in His work, especially in the tiny details! On a daily basis, something will happen that is so unlikely that there is no other explanation. The messages we feel impressed to share, the times we go visit people and catch them at just the right time, the members we feel like we should check up on ... it's definitely not our own knowledge and power that lead us to these people!

It makes me think of this quote by Elder Maxwell:

“The same God that placed that star in a precise orbit millennia before it appeared over Bethlehem in celebration of the birth of the Babe has given at least equal attention to placement of each of us in precise human orbits so that we may, if we will, illuminate the landscape of our individual lives, so that our light may not only lead others but warm them as well.”

Isn't that beautiful? I have a huge testimony that Heavenly Father is SO involved in everything we do. I know that he arranges our lives so we come in contact with those people that we can help and those that can bless us. Human orbits. Such a cool thought. It's really obvious in missionary work, and it's made me realize how true it's been my entire life! I know that each of us can bless so many lives if we are just aware of the opportunities God gives us!

This Saturday we get transfer texts! I'm pretty sure me and Sister Roy will stay right where we are, but who knows?! (God does. See previous paragraph.) But because next week is transfer week, P-day will be on Wednesday. So I will talk to you then!

I love you all and I love this work that the Lord has entrusted me to do. I feel so blessed to be a missionary at such an amazing time in history! We are so lucky to have the gospel in our lives and there are so many good people who need the peace and happiness that comes from it!

Love,
Sister Gledhill