Box of Sunshine!

Family 

Kylee looks so beautiful!! I am so so proud of her. Cant believe that she is done. makes me a little sad. No more little baby kylee. Sounds like yall are keeping pretty busy! Missing being with all the family on those special days. But goodness did we also have a busy week!

First I want to start off by saying thank you for my box of sunshine :) it arrived at my apartment at the perfect timing! I remember we were planning and something had really upset me. and right after I finished saying a prayer asking Heavenly father to help me to be happy the doorbell rang! And the wonderful mail lady who was smiling at me gave me my box of sunshine! I looked at her with tears in my eyes and told her she has answered my prayers! Amazing how that happens. Heavenly Father is sooo good to me.

Wednesday night was crazy. First we went and taught our recent convert. We always teach him in his work shop because his wife doesn’t really like us being inside. When we finished up the lesson he was messing with his nail gun and accidently shot himself in the thumb!!!!!! Let me say that again.....HE SHOT HIMSELF IN THE THUMB! ...and all he said was ow. I was kind of freaking out. There was blood everywhere and he was determined to get the nail out right there and then. He grabbed the hammer and asked if i wanted to do it!!!! umm......if you really want me to?? he began to laugh and pulled it out himself! oh....it was sooo gross. But he is okay now. It was just too crazy haha. Then I got pulled over driving home.....but it was only because my lights weren’t on......thank goodness.

Thursday night while we were planning for the next day, sister Nielsen was on the phone talking with our ward mission leader when she began to scream while pointing behind my head. I immediately look and there on the wall right behind my head was the biggest croak roach I have every seen in my life!! it scared me so bad that i jumped out of my chair which then scared the roach to crawl into my drawer!!!! ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!! So .....We stayed up for about an hour trying to get it out so we could kill it. Finally it came out and I was able to hit it with one of my shoes. Oh it was so gross. haha we have been having a lot of random adventures.

Its funny some of the places we have taught the gospel. I hadn’t thought about how weird it was until just now. This week we taught one of our recent converts about eternal families in Barns and Nobles and taught our investigator the law of chastity in jack in the box. haha its great! And our area is very poor so most of the apartments and home we go into don’t have furniture. So we sit on the floor most of the time. (Which doesn’t really help my tail bone problem) makes me so sad to see this. No one has cars either so we have to make tons of calls to try and get members to take them.

I was very excited while reading your letter. It warms my heart to hear the success of the mission. We have wonderful missionaries in this mission who are ready to go to work :)

I have loved hearing about how the members are getting more involved in the work! We have actually been seeing a lot of that here in River trails! Me and sister Sylar about a month ago were singed up to go have dinner with some less actives in our ward. We were pondering on what we should share with them. I won’t lie; we were a little timid to share the Work of Salvation lesson with them but then decided that the Lord would have us do so. It wasn’t super successful at first, but as we continued to follow up with them and help them in this work they set up a time to have their neighbor over for dinner to listen to a message. Oh I was so excited! :) Built my faith in never giving up on members. If they don’t have someone at first doesn’t mean they don’t have what it takes to be a missionary! Anyone and everyone who has Faith in Jesus Christ and his gospel can share it with others. And we are here to guide them that way.

We were able to take our recent converts Liz and Blake Holland (siblings) to the temple. What a sacred and special experience for them. I have seen the gospel enrich their lives and bring their family closer. The temple president congratulated them on being worthy to do such a powerful work. Now not only have they blessed their lives because of this decision they have made but they can give their families in heaven the opportunity to have the fullness of joy! I was thinking about when our stake President had attended one of our zone conferences and he had drew out a chart of how many people’s lives we would be blessing. In my mind i thought about the temple work that our recent converts will be doing and added all of the people who have accepted their work in the spirit world to the chart! :) mind blowing! Love it with all my heart.

Shana Taylor was interviewed yesterday for her interview this Saturday and is all ready to go! :) I hope one day you can meet her. She is fifteen years old and has such a deep desire to follow Christ! It’s neat to see someone so young want to do so much good! :)

Thank you again for all the love and support. Im soooo grateful for a loving family and a merciful father in heaven. I am truly blessed. Hurrah for Isreal!

Lots of love. Sister porter :)