Hey Y’all AKA Hola a Todos,
I hope you’ve all been doing the #LightTheWorld or #IlluminaElMundo challenge the church put out this year and sharing the daily videos with your testimonies!! Aka, if you’re not doing that, well – I challenge you all to do it starting today. And tag me in your Facebook posts (Madeline Thelin).
The last two weeks have been full of stories to tell and service opportunities that make me wish it was Christmas all year. Yes, I did just say that. I know – you all thought I disliked Christmas. Well, guess what, people change and I am now a HUGE fan of Christmas and cannot get enough of Christmas music. Shout out to 2014 David Archuleta and Michael Buble. I am listening to them non stop right now along with the full Messiah and the songs from the Nutcracker Ballet (GRACIAS PAPĂ).
Now to explain the pictures:
1: This is H. Nez. She is my juice friend and we found a juice bar today and got a whole bunch of cold-pressed juice that we really shouldn’t have bought. But let me tell you, charcoal lemonade is divine. Try it, dad. Also, we got ginger shots and we chilled and talked to the lady at the counter and she made me want to do ginger shots every day.
2: We contacted this house with a cute mini house outside it and it has these PRECIOUS mini pots that are to DIE for. They legit are the size of like two of my thumbs. And handmade too.
3: I got a haircut if you cant tell and now our hair is exactly the same size. So obvi we braided it together.
4: So, this picture is funny because traumatically enough we got into a car wreck this last week and were stuck in a sketchy area of town for a while. Met a lot of policemen because they couldn’t figure out if it was under the jurisdiction of Highway Patrol, county police, or city police. Huge mess, but the blessing out of it was an awesome missionary experience!
So, the Damons rock and picked us up from that sketchy place in town and we drove for what seemed like forever to get to the mission office to borrow a car that we named Mulder. Shout out to the X files fans out there. Mainly we called him that because the new car is ooooooold as heck and smells funny. But that’s what you get when it is a used elders car. Ew.
Before we move on, note that I grabbed a copy of The Book of Mormon from our old wrecked car, Betsy, because I knew my companion would freak out if she didn’t have a copy of The Book of Mormon to bring with her into dinner. She always says, “You never know when you might need one.” And mind you, it was an English copy of The Book of Mormon. That will be important later.
Anyway, after picking up the car we went to get pancakes from a local diner bc why not. We just had a very interesting last few hours. So when we got there, my companion left the car and started to tell me how she wished she had a copy of The Book of Mormon with her. I smiled and pulled one out for her and she laughed at me. I’m sure she was grateful bc when we got inside, before I could even order the hot stack I was craving, a man came up to our table and started to ask us questions about our religion.
His name is J. And he had studied our religion before in school and had a few questions for some real-life Mormons. After talking for a minute, he asked about the Book of Mormon and what exactly it was. My companion and I smiled at each other and contacted the crap out of the guy. He left the table with the copy of The Book of Mormon and our phone number.
See how cool that was? Honestly, it was a miracle that I grabbed the book, that it was in English, and that our number was already written in it. God rocks guys. He makes miracles happen in the weirdest of ways. Oh, and my pancakes were ah-mazing. 10/10 – would recommend.
5: In memory of Betsy. RIP for now. At least until she gets out of the shop.
6: The girls did my hair and makeup and I have never felt so connected to Farrah Fawcett in my entire life. Bad picture, but imagine 80s hair and hot pink and blue eyelids. Yowza, they did a number on me. Anything for mis nenas verdad (my true girls)?
Miss you all,
Feliz Navidad,
#LightTheWorld
Hermana Thelin