Gratitude

Hello my dear family!
I loved seeing pictures from the wedding, they look so happy.  What a special day for everyone.  You were in my thoughts a lot that day!  It was a special day for me.  I felt a lot of comfort and peace that day, so it was good.  

Our week was great!  Our area is seriously booming.  I cannot even tell you the blessings and miracles that we are able to see everyday. But it really was a week full of blessings for me. This transfer is really hard. But my testimony has grown so, so much.  I know that there is a huge reason that I have been given harder assignments.  I took a step back to focus on the progress I have been able to make within the last few weeks.  Something that I have noticed in myself is how my relationship with my Father in Heaven has developed and grown so strong.  I have always prayed and always had faith, of course....but never like this.  I have never prayed like this.  And coming with those prayers is the love and blessings the He has in store for me.  I have literally felt Him by my side every day.  I think that is why I was supposed to come on a mission.  Because I was supposed to learn how to rely on Him in my times of need.  The testimony that has grown in me is unparallelled.  I can look at people here and really tell them with my heart that I know these things. 

Biggest tender mercy of the week, J. went to the temple :)  And he loved it!  And he passed the Sacrament yesterday!!!  I felt like a proud mother watching him.  I was so worried he would have gone the wrong way, or forgotten someone, but he did soooo good!  It brought such an immense joy to my heart.  I can't even explain the feeling!  I loved it. 

I know this email is a bit short, my thoughts are everywhere.  I love it here.  I am grateful for the challenges that make me grow!  I am grateful that I am learning how to love others.  I am grateful for the miracles.  I am grateful for this perfect Gospel.  I am grateful for my amazing, amazing family!  And most of all I am grateful for my Father in Heaven that guides me every day and has a way of showing his immense love.  I love this work and all the comes with it!  I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!  Make sure that you look for someone else in need this week, they're always there.  I love you so much :)

Love, Hermana Michelle

Our 84 year-old investigator, who is getting baptized on Dec. 8th!

A missionary's letter to her older brother on his wedding day, Nov. 21st

(Bryan's best man, Sawyer Hemsley, read this as a surprise during the wedding dinner)

Dear Bryan,

When I think of my childhood, I think of you.  

I think of us playing ice hockey on the canal, circus peanuts on the railroad tracks, lacrosse tournaments in the backyard, lots of pushing me out the door the first time it snowed, lots of slaps, and a few hugs.  

I think of the times that you listened to my boy drama, and let me cry until I felt better.  I think of how you changed on your mission.  How you gave me this example to grow from.  I love all the times we had as children as we both had our own trials.  Those were the times that we grew the most, was through those trials.  

I am here on my mission because of you.  Because of who you have become.  I love my mission and I love that I get to share it with you as you did with me.  

And now you are getting married.  My heart wants to be there, but it is planted here in my mission.  Thank you for changing my life.  For the advice you have given me.  You are truly my best friend.  You have supported me in everything.  You have laughed with me and cried with me.  

I am so grateful that you and Rachelle are getting married, and that you are making these sweet covenants in the Temple.  Your Heavenly Father is watching you two, full of joy.  He loves you so much.  

Welcome to the family Rachelle, I love you!  Continue doing all you can to come closer together to your Heavenly Father.  Good luck with everything and know you are in my thoughts and prayers.  Love, Your baby sister, (Mitchy)

Training again!

Hello my dear momma!

Well I'll just start with saying that my week was crazy.  I wrote you a long letter to explain everything.  This email might be a little scattered.  Well, here I am again in the same position of last transfer.  I'm just a lot better at it, haha.  I didn't say I was great, just better! I was thinking that I might get a little "break" this transfer.... I guess thinking that doesn't always work! My new companion is from Wisconsin, but born in Mexico!  So we have a car now!  Which actually makes it really nice to squeeze in more appointments.  But I never realized how terrible traffic is!  It takes so long to get places sometimes.  

Michelle and her MTC companion, Hermana Blair, who is currently in the same district with her.

You talked a little bit about change.  That has been something really amazing that I have seen lately.  I think I told you about some sisters who had told me that they felt like they hadn't really changed on their missions.  It made me so grateful that I have the ability to see the change and progress that I have made.  I still think about the circumstances that led me here, how everything worked out and I thought it wasn't supposed to be here.  I cannot imagine my life without my mission.  I have gained such a deep love for everything about it.  I love the people, the ward, missionaries, but mostly I have learned how to love the Gospel and my Heavenly Father.  I have learned how to put it above everything else.  And that when times are hard (because they are.....) I get to remember that I love Him.  And that I am doing His work.  This is not about me.  Okay, I think I am just talking to myself now.  I just hope that everyone is able to do this as well.  That once we truly become converted, we love our Heavenly Father more than anyone else.  I loved the article you sent me about some missionaries who come on their mission because it is their duty.  But they leave loving the Lord.  It is a process, and it is so worth it.  I love who I have become and every day am becoming.  My testimony has increased so much these last two transfers.  I get to see miracles everyday!  

Michelle and her new companion, Hermana Acosta

This email is short, I am feeling overwhelmed and a little melancholy with Bryan getting married this week.  But I love it here.  I love the ups and the downs that each day brings.  I love my Mission President.  I love the work.  And I love my Heavenly Father.  I love you as well and my sweet family.  I am so happy that you all get to be together this week!  I hope the wedding goes well.  You're in my thoughts and prayers.  I love you so much :) Hermana Michelle

Humility

Momma,
Good morning my dear :)  Your email really brought so much comfort to my heart.  I loved what you said you are grateful for.  You have so many blessings and I am so grateful that you have the ability to see those blessings. This week was awesome!  I had some really amazing things happen this week.  First, I am glad you got my letter :) I wanted you to have a little taste of what I do every day.  And that is really how everyday goes!  I want to do that more, just write a little summary of my day for you.  I am grateful that I feel comfortable with sharing the hard times, because there are plenty.  But that I get to share the most joyful of moments with you, as well.  This transfer has been anything but easy.  This has been one of my hardest transfers!  I thought I did a lot of growing last transfer... and then felt I took a step back on this one. But...there were lessons that I learned that I know I will take for the rest of my life.  One of the biggest is how to be selfless.  You know how I am... I can be a selfish person ;-)  But I couldn't be this transfer.  I literally could not be, even if I wanted to.  I had something in my path that was much more important than me.  I have learned a lot in this companionship.  I hope that I am always able to put others before me.  As a missionary, I am here to invite others to Christ.  That doesn't just mean my investigators, it means members, missionaries, and companions.  I talked to President the other day and he thanked me for what I have done this transfer.  He told me that it was a lot harder than I had imagined and even that he imagined. He thought it was hard!  But he told me he was proud of the things that I had done.  So onto another transfer... not sure how the time went so fast.  I am about to start my 6th transfer!  And with that I will be training again!  What!? I didn't expect it either!  I will be staying here in Hollywood, training.  Obviously, I need to be super humbled or something. 

That's another thing I have learned immensly this transfer, humility.  I had never in my whole life relied on my Heavenly Father as much as I did this transfer!  I have see the blessings of turning it over to the Lord.  I wanted to share something that I saw yesterday in Relief Society. There was a Hermana who was going through a trial (I'm not exactly sure what happened).  So on Sunday, they presented her in RS and gave her a simple card and a bag of chocolates.  When she went up to get it, she just began to cry.  Over this gift that was sooo incredibly simple.  A gift that if someone had received it, they would have usually just said 'thank you' with a hug.  But this Hermana was so thankful.  She was so humble.  And it made me see that the small things are so incredibly important.  That we must see and recognize what others do for us, and how we can help others.  People are always in need, and always in much more need than us.  I love doing that as a missionary.  Seeing these people who are holding on so tight to what they have, and we get to give them this blessing that fills their lives with complete light.  I love my job.  The things that I have learned this transfer are countless.  I will never be able to explain them through a simple letter.  But I hope that you can see them and feel them.  I know that I am not the same Sister Warner that left the MTC!  It is amazing.

I thought about you a lot on Saturday, as it was Michael's birthday.  Time really doesn't seem to heal that.  But I had an amazing experience.  It was in the morning, and I had a minute to be alone.  I reminded myself that it was his birthday.  I felt something that I have never felt in my whole life.  My heart literally felt full.  I felt like he was hugging me and he was right by my side.  I wish I could explain this better, but it was amazing.  I knew that he was there with me.  And that he is with me preparing the hearts of these people.  He is so proud of each and every one of us!  I know that.

I got Bryan's beautiful wedding invite on Friday.  I will be honest and tell you I went in the bathroom and gave myself some time to just cry.  And I did for a while.  I'm so sad to miss this but know I am where I need to be...

Well my dear, I love this email.  I hope all is well in happyville :)  Thank you for your sweet prayers, I feel them so much!  I love the work.  More than ever.  I love seeing the sweet miracles every day.  I hope you get to see them as well in your life.  I love you so much momma! Love, Michelle

Trials of Faith

Hello momma dear!
Wow, crazy week!  I feel like this week has been and up and down emotional roller coaster.  I am tired...We didn't see much happen this week, but we contacted a LOT.  This next week is going to be really awesome because we have set a lot of return appointments. This week was hard.  You told me to tell you the hard things, too.  And let me tell ya, it's was hard.  I am just really tired.  Being on a mission, I feel like we don't take a break. But it is something that I am learning, is to take breaks.  I feel like this week was filled with little miracles.  We saw some really cool things.  I also feel like this week really tested my faith...I had a lot of encounters that were hard for me. But I also saw that if it weren't for my mission, my testimony wouldn't be where it is right now. That is something that I have noticed alot and that I am so incredibly thankful for.  Before I left, I questioned going on a mission alot.  I didn't know why I needed to go and wasn't really sure that I wanted to.  But I have grown in ways unimaginable.  I know that I wouldn't have been able to develop the beautiful testimony of the Gospel I have, if it weren't for my mission.

Hna Hart and Hna Warner

She's got a little skirt problem here!

This week I have been thinking a lot about how it is Michael's birthday.  I'm not sure why but I feel like a mission magnifies these kind of occasions.  Usually for things with Michael, we do it as a family.  It is another part of my mission that I have learned, you have to rely on Heavenly Father.  I don't have any other source.  I miss him a lot.  I think as well, of where he would be in his life right now.  That he would have a little family of his own and that I would have one more person to email on Mondays!  Just the little silly things.  But one thing that I have no doubt about, is that he is here with me.  That he is guiding and protecting me.  Sister Wright told me during Joseph's baptism that Michael must be having a huge party in heaven right then.  I laughed but then realized how true it is.  I have been thinking about the Cox family a lot today.  Today is 4 years since Neil passed away.  This morning I read the scripture D&C 84:88 - my mission scripture.  I thought about how blessed we are to have the knowledge of angels that our lifting us up.  I need that this week!  I will be thinking about you a lot, mom, on Saturday. 

Loving doing the Lord's work!

Missions are a challenge.  And probably the hardest thing a person can do.  But we can do it, and somehow I have found an immense love for it.  I know that this is where I am supposed to be. I see miracles every single day and that is what makes me grow. I have never felt a spirit as I have here on my mission.  Heavenly Father is preparing people. He is preparing people in your life, specifically. Take advantage of that. Sometimes when I get scared to knock a door, I picture the worst possible situation. Then when I picture someone screaming at us, I feel fine. Because it's a message that everyone deserves.  And no one has ever screamed at me on their door step! There's my two cents for today!  Please send me letters!  I need some very badly.  They mean a lot.  You are the best, my dear! I love you so much!

Love, Hermana Michelle

P.S. I really am so happy!  I love you both so much!  I am thinking about you a lot this week, Michael is with us. Love you so much :)

Hola papa!

Espero que tu semana estuviera muy bien.  Como esta todo?  Esta semana paso muy rapido.  I am super tired.  It was an interesting week.  I wrote mom a really long letter telling her about my days so you will have to read that too.  This week was a week that really tried my faith.  I feel like I am constantly needed to do better and try harder in everything.  I just want to be the best that I can.  All in all everything is so good.  I hope that in 30 years I am able to see one of my converts strong in the church.  I hope that Jose and Joseph serve missions.  Jose has been thinking about it a lot.  I am working on exact obedience and it has been really good.  I love you more than words can tell!  Have a great week :)

A day in the life.....