June 9, 2013

Hello Family!!

Oh how how much I love you and reading your letters to me. Thank you thank you thank you! I love you so much and can't describe my happiness in getting to skype you next week! I pray we will figure it all out and how sad, truly how so so so sad I am it won't be on Father's Day. Oh well, I'm learning patience eh? I love you regardless and I'll be thinking about you Dad all day on Father's day! 

Okay so... Come What May and Love It. Sound familiar? Ha ha I love you Mom. And what a great quote to live by everyday and especially when times are hard. What a great example Mom was for us. She taught us so many things, her life is a celebration. She lived for a short time dang it, but you know what she lived her life to the fullest. How many good things have come to us because of her life, and because of her death as well. Mom was the prime example for us and how grateful I am for her, her life, her example, and everything about her I love it. Her attitude during her times of trial was amazing. She was strong, which made it easier to be strong for me. She was brave, which made it easier for me to be brave. She kept her head up, she was positive everyday, which made it possible for me to be the same. Because she found joy in her journey, she knew the meaning of "come what may and love it." Because of her teachings and her example, I can do the same. I can follow in her footsteps and find joy everyday in the journey. I can live with the attitude "come what may and love it." Even before she got sick she was so happy and found joy in everything. I think I miss her laugh the most. She always laughed ha ha. Especially when she was when her brothers and Jill. Ha ha one of the reasons I love Jackson Hole is because it is always a happy time up there because we are together as a family. Mom was amazing at fulfilling her callings. She loved serving and was great at it. I learned from her that it doesn't matter what your calling is as long as you serve with all heart and you love what you do. Mom touched the lives of many through her service in the education field. She always loved those she worked with and I can't remember a time when she ever complained about those she served with. She was a shining example of spreading sunshine where ever she went. She was an example of how to follow Christ. I loved seeing her every night read her scriptures and pray. I loved her dedication to what she put her heart to. She had her heart pointed towards Christ and I know that she loved Him because of her example in everything she did. Yes I miss Mom a lot. I look forward to the blessings that come from living the gospel so that we can be reunited again. I know I have to fulfill my part here on earth, this life is the test, in order to enjoy her presence again. She's up there, waiting happily for us, watching and taking care of us. She knows how we're feeling and she helps us get through our hard times. She helps us live by the quote "come what may and love it." Life is good. :) I love you Mom!

So now... this week :)

We have had ups and downs this week! One of our ups was also one of our downs which was sad. So this week Sister Grace had her baptismal interview. She is so ready to be baptized. She has a strong strong testimony. It is easy to see her relationship with our Lord when she prayes. She is so ready to be baptized! So her  baptismal date is this next Saturday-June 15th. She is not yet married to her basically husband, so we are planning the wedding right before the baptism. Yesterday on Sunday we were all in the Bishop's office with the RS President, figuring out what we need to do to have everything in place for the wedding and then the baptism. We are stoked! Then after church we got word her husband doesn't want to be married anymore. Her husband is very kind, and VERY shy. And he doesn't want to get married anymore. Meaning... she can't be baptized. We are so so sad! In the last 12 hours we have been praying to know what to do to help make this wedding and baptism happen. We've come to the conclusion we are going to pray so hard and have the faith that the Lord has His timing for everything. We are all learning something the Lord wants us to learn right now, and we trust whatever happens this week happens for a reason. We pray for her husband's heart to be softened so he is willing to get married so she can be baptized. Then we pray he will see her happiness in the gospel and also have the desire to be baptized! In the Lord's time... everything happens in the Lord's time and we will simply and fervently pray. 

We also had a great lesson with Tatay Amadore. We watched the Restoration DVD and testified about the Restoration and the Spirit was strong. We invited him to church and he said he would try, no harm in trying eh? And guess what. He came to church! We were thrilled to see him! He enjoyed his experience and wants to know himself if the church is true or not. He really wants to know if it is true or not. He will get an answer. We're excited. 

Then at church yesterday we had the attendance of 194! The most our ward has had in a LONG time! We were thrilled! We had 2 of our super less active members come to church! We were stoked! Then we had 9 investigators come! We took a picture it was freaking awesome! The Lord is sooo great to us! It is true that the Lord is bound when we do what He says. When we work, and strive to be exactly obedient the Lord blesses us in ways that we don't expect. I love it. I love how much my testimony and my conversion to the gospel is growing. I am learning to rely on the Lord, I'm learning that's really actually the only way to get through everything. The Lord and our Savior are SO great. Wow they are too kind. I am so in debt to them. I love them so much. I pray they will be happy with what I'm doing here, I strive to live as they would have me live. How grateful I am for repentance and forgiveness. I have so many shortcomings, ha ha ah man. But I know through repentance I am forgiven of my sins. I can be relieved of guilt. My weakness can become strong through the Atonement. I know my Savior lives. I know He loves me. I know He loves and cares about you and your well being. He wants us to be happy. He rejoices with us when we rejoice. He mourns with us when we mourn. He carries us when we can't go on by ourselves anymore. He will get us through everything if we let Him, if we turn to Him. I've also learned how important it is to remember the Lord always and not just during our times of troubles. The Lord gives us hardships and trials so we can grow, learn, and come closer to Him. Through our Savior, we truly can say, "come what may and love it."

I love you family! 

-Sister Davidson

Picture time!

1. Look I'm eating fish! I'm getting better at eating fish and Dad you would be so proud of me. I still don't like all the bones that are with fish! 

2. Also, I haven't brought myself to eat the eyeball yet. It is Sister Frejas' favorite part of the fish-the whole head actually. I'm happy to give her the head all the time. 

3. Sister Leonila, and Sister Jaquiline! They have a BGD for the end of this month! We are excited for their progress and pray they sill continue to progress, continue to come to church, continue to read, etc! We pray they are building their testimony so that they will be converted to the gospel not just have a testimony. There's a difference. :)

4. Just some cute neighbors who wanted a picture with us. :)

1. Ha ha okay can you guess what this is? I don't think I would have been able to guess... Check it out. It's frog. A ward missionary in the other ward told me how delicious it was and so he said he would make it for me and then I would eat it. So I agreed but didn't actually believe it would happen. Well he was true to his word so I had to be true to my word. What made it worse, was that when they dropped off the meal he showed me how his mom had cooked it. He had recorded on his phone the video of the process. Nasty. Just to give you an idea I'll go into detail ha ha. Except Savanna maybe don't read this detail it's nasty and may make you vomit. I saw the dead frog, then she cut it open, and the blood and guts started pouring out. Then they pulled off the skin of the frog. That was nasty. I'm talking about the body of the frog still, like think of the way a frog looks. Then think about that the reptile is being cooked, cleaned, and bloody, and nasty. Ew I wanted to throw up. Ha ha sorry for making you suffer as I did. 

2. Getting ready to eat frog. This whole time I'm telling myself, okay worst case scenerio. I die. Not so bad. Next worse case scenerio, I get really sick, really sick. Oh well, worst case I grow more compassionate and have more sympathy for those who are sick. Okay worst case scenerio, not that bad I can do this.

3. yep we are actually doing this. 

4. I ate it! Okay not actually that bad. It tasted like chicken... just more tough. But really it wasn't that bad! I can now say I've eaten frog. I'll be honest I probably don't want to eat it again because of the mental block I have done it! And it wasn't bad! Good work Sister Davidson. You can accomplish hard things ha ha, you can overcome your mental blocks of nasty foods.

1. Zone Conference! It was awesome! Sister Frejas and myself :)

2. Tarlac Zone! 

3. Sister Ocampo and myself! She is adorable and so happy all the time!

4. Our roommates! Sister Bernarte and Sister Marcucci! I love them so much! They are the best ever and I just love them!

1. Ward missionaries!

That's all folks! I love you so much! 

Again I can't express my sadness about not being able to skype you on Father's Day. But when we look at the bright side, we get to skype. We are thousands of miles away from each other and we can still see each other and talk. I love you! I love being here. I love our family. I love missionary work. I love our Savior.

Keep the faith. Keep going. Come What May and Love it!

-Sister Davidson :)