Don't ask, because I will tell.: The Week of ZION!!!

Dec 22, 2014

You ever heard about Zion? I've been studying it like crazy. And I've been praying super sincere, make you cry stuff. And who needs Babylon? Sometimes it feels like you do, but who really needs it? I don't. I really don't. I know what the rest of my life is going to be, and up til this point I just kept thinking I would have to step up some day or I would just magically change and be a whole new person.

And I'm an idiot.

Change starts now and takes effort and perfection takes practice (if you can't tell I've gotten pretty well over the grumpy butt-ness). I'll come home and ya'll won't even recognize my face cuz it's glowing all over the place!

Now I'll be humble. Sister Maddox and I got to speak in Sacrament meeting about the Atonement, and there was not a dry eye ;) We had an investigator come to church and she loved it! And she wants to come back. And she is amazing and I love her. Pray for Mary.

Wei and Yali are the cutest things ever. Yali MADE me a bracelet completely by herself and it's gorgeous. I feel like she is absolutely someone I'm here to find and embrace with the Gospel. It's just freaking difficult because she has a hard time sometimes focusing on English (if she doesn't really focus she loses the conversation), and Wei always wants to talk about his job so she totally checks out. But she's been praying more often and for many different things. I love her. I just wish there were Chinese speakers out here (cough cough Rachel and Spencer).

Jerry doesn't believe anyone has every seen God face-to-face. I told him to read the Bible and think about it some more. And pray. We still visit him every week because he lives alone and he told us to make sure we never find him lying out in the yard.... We love him.

Brandon didn't come to church even though he promised he would. He's been reading the Book of Mormon and wishes he had more time to read it. He was also 45 minutes late for our lesson so we didn't really have that much time to talk about the good stuff. But he's showing progress.

Blair! He's the one who made me cry and I got "contentious" with. We met again, and he was humble he asked questions with a sincere desire to know the answer and not to argue or prove us wrong. We'll see how this moves forward. A humble heart is the only way to receive the true teachings of Jesus Christ.

We decided to really explore our area and went up into the mountains to our tiny town we cover. We drove up and down every road to find homes and get familiar with the area. On our way up one road I said, "That house on our way back down." So on the way down we stopped and knocked on the door. A sweet old lady opened the door and we introduced ourselves, she started crying and telling us about her husband's lung cancer. She looked so worn out and scared. She reached for hugs and she asked us to come back and pray for her and her husband. Revelation works.

For the first time I got UBER homesick. In Relief Society we sang "Silent Night" as the closing song and I wanted to jump straight into "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" to finish caroling. And then I realized that everyone was going caroling and eating scones THAT NIGHT! And that was stinky and made me cry. But it's all good.

I finally got some pictures to send you! Sorry there's been a drought.

-Sister Packard

Best:

1. Standing under the mistletoe even on my mission! (But Mom! I've told people about the mistletoad and everyone asks where we got it and why we do that. I have no idea! Why do we do that?)