Hermana Lund in San Antonio: 5 Months!

Mi Familia!

Can you believe I've already been gone for 5 months?! Man, the time goes fast. And this transfer is already half over. Mission time is crazy. It really doesn't make any sense.

Things are looking up. Spanish is easier (to speak, at least...one day I'll understand) and M'hija and I are getting closer. Today has been especially good. I got an awesome package (Thanks, Mom and Young Women!) and later today we have lunch with the other Elders and some members, and we're going to have a Sisters' day with the other Sisters in our zone...shopping and painting our nails and all that fun stuff. :) And it's not hot today! It's been raining! It smells and feels so good outside. :)

We met the mission president on Thursday. He's amazing! Seriously, he just knows what he's doing and is ready to go. I'm so excited to have him here and to work with him. His wife is great, too. She served a mission in Taiwan 25 or so years ago. They have 3 teenage kids here with them and another son in college in California.

Robert is still doing really well. We had to move his date to the 20th because he absolutely can't get work off this weekend, which makes me a little nervous but I know he'll be ok. He met our bishop yesterday and afterwards the bishop told us congratulations and that "he's ready." Yeah, he is! More ready than anyone I've ever met. Seriously, this whole thing with Robert is an absolute miracle. He is a completely changed person. He is happy and confident and doesn't even have the urge to drink. His testimony is rock-solid. He really just let the Atonement into his life, let it change him. I love him so much and I'm so happy for him.

We have a ton of progressing investigators right now, but Robert is the only one with a date. We're trying hard to set some dates with the other ones but they're just not there yet. Jose and Erika are probably the closest. Remember them? They're the ones who are totally ready to be baptized and want to really badly, but can't because they're living together and aren't married. Yeah, we're still teaching them. We had dinner with them yesterday and we talked to them about the importance of setting goals. We told them that God has a date in mind for them...they just need to ask Him what it is. We said that when they have the faith to set a date, God will help everything work out so they can achieve it. They said they will. I hope they do. They are so, so, so ready to be baptized. They just need to ACT.

Anyway, I'm doing well. I'm still struggling a bit but I think I'm starting to figure out how to get out of the way of my own happiness. I think one of the biggest things that has made this transfer difficult is that I've just come to the realization that life really is hard. I realized that I'm going to have more hard times like this on my mission and more hard times like this..and worse.. throughout my life. It kind of sucked the hope right out of me. Sometimes I'm afraid of being unhappy. But that isn't something to worry about. Good times will always come and there's beauty in every day. I just need to get better at opening my eyes to it.

This week I'm going to try harder to think about Christ throughout the day. I don't think about Him enough. I'm also going to seriously focus on the people around me and their happiness, especially Hermana Rodriguez. I won't worry about how long this hard time is going to last or when another one is going to come. God loves me and He'll take care of me. He already has. :)

President Slaughter asked that, before we leave for the day, we kneel to pray and stand to testify. That just means that we say a kneeling, meaningful prayer (as opposed to the rushed ones with all our stuff in our hands standing right in front of our door) and then stand up and bear our testimony to each other. This has helped me so much the past few days, especially the testifying part. It has helped me to remember the simple things that I know: that God loves us, that this is His work, that He will send angels to help us, that the church is restored, the Book of Mormon is true, that we have a living prophet today, and that Christ is our savior. I know these things are true. Nothing will ever shake me of that.

I love you all! Have a great week and do great things!