I Love Being A Missionary!

It's a gorgeous day in Spokane, our car is washed and vacumed (next to reading your emails, that's my favorite thing about P-days), I get to write you about our crazy week, and I'm a missionary!  So life is good.  Sometimes I'll lie in bed at night, and I can't sleep because I just can't believe that I get to be a missionary.  I know it sounds super corny, but it's true. 

First of all, thanks so much for the emails.  They make me so happy and really boost me up.  So you've all been asking about visas, and here's the latest. Six of us ten "visa waiters" that came to Spokane on the same day got their Visas and are on their way to Argentina, and four of us (all three of us girls from the wonderful District 38 B :) and one other Elder) are here for another transfer! So basically, I will be here for my twelve weeks of training, and then it'll be off to Argentina for a whole new mission and a whole new experience. I'm not going to lie, when President told me, there  was a mixture of emotions that swept through me, and I didn't know if I should be let down or excited.  My first, selfish thought was of those six other missionaries who were packing their bags for Argentina, but I knew that those thoughts are destructive to a missionary's success, so I prayed to Heavenly Father for optimism.  And He hasn't let me down. As we walk around the beautiful, green hills here, I think about the extra month of glorious warmth that I get. And when I see Steve and Hermana Ramirez, I realize that now I get to see the baptisms of these two people who I love so much!  

Just to clarify, President mentioned that the reason I'll be here another six weeks is because it just gets so crazy when they try to send missionaries into a mission when it's not transfer time for that mission.  If we were to just leave right when we got our visas, we would get to Buenos Aires without companions and it would be a disaster.  I have no idea if the rest of my dear little MTC district went to Argentina.  If you see any of them on the blog let me know!

Anyways, enough of that.  We have seen Heavenly Father working with us so much this week, it's incredible.  I realized I never described who Hermana Ramirez is, which is crazy becuase we've been working with her since day one that I got here. (Actually, on my very first day in the field, Sister Christofferson and I visited her, I invited her to be baptized, and she accepted!)  She is this sweet sweet grandma from Columbia who is visiting her Americanized family for six months.  She doesn't speak a word of English, and the only people around her who speak Spanish are her daughter and son in law, so she gets pretty lonely.  As you can imagine, she loves having us to visit, and she LOVES going to the Spanish branch every Sunday.  She was scheduled to be baptized on June 16, but is so sweet and doesn't think she is ready.  So we are really working with her to develop her faith that she can be ready to be baptized, and she is praying about June 30. 

Man, I can't believe I just tried to cram six weeks of our incredible experience with Hermana Ramirez into one paragraph.  That's how I feel about everything that I write about.  I  just wish you all could MEET these people and see their progression in some sort of video.  See the light that literally comes into their faces and understanding that clicks when they learn about something like the glorious plan of salvation. The plan that a loving Heavenly Father has for Hermana Ramirez or for Steve as an individual.  That is one thing I have to come to appreciate so much more since being out here.  Jesus Christ loves INDIVIDUALS, He is truly a Shepherd of the ONE.  I am blown away at how the gospel changes lives even when those lives are so incredibly different and people's needs are so different. 

Anyways, I wish I could write pages more, but I'm out of time! Mom, you wanted to know about my schedule and contacting.  Haha I could write essays about the latter, seeing as it's my biggest fear and the greatest area where I need improvement every single day.  You have no idea how many daily planning sessions in the morning have started with my patient, wonderful companions sighing and and asking, "Okay Sister Leavitt what's the goal for today?"  And then me, "Alright guys, today's gonna be good. THREE people today, I'm going to contact THREE people!! I'm going to reach my goal!"  Haha it's ridiculous, and I'll write more about the actual experience of contacting next time.  But for now, I love you all dearly, and I love being a missionary!

Love, Sister Leavitt