Growth cannot come by taking the easy way.....

Well..... This has probably been my least favorite week yet. How about

I start with the good.

     We had an amazing church tour with Laura and Juan on Wednesday.

Gino was there to teach with us, and President and Sister Johnson were

also there. We taught lesson three- the gospel of Jesus Christ as we

took them around the church. The purpose was to show why/ how we can

accomplish God's purpose found in Moses 1:39 through His church.

Faith- we started at a picture of Christ, and talked about how we can

increase our faith

Repentance- we were by the bishops office and talked them through the

steps of repentance.

Baptism- we showed them the baptismal font

Endure to the end- we ended in the chapel where we spoke about

renewing our covenants through the sacrament and ended by singing "Te

necesito si."

     It could not have been a better night. The spirit was definitely

on our side, the words seemed to come effortlessly as we bore our

testimonies of each step towards returning to our Father in Heaven in

Spanish.

     Such a special night I will surely remember with some of the

sweetest memories of my mission. Laura and their two girls came to

church on Sunday. Juan will be able to come next week.

     So....... Thursday night through Saturday night I had food

poisoning. Thursday I was feeling horrible all day but we were in

charge of our zone training so we stuck it out, but by the time we got

to our dinner appt at seven it was getting bad. We were at the home of

Dillon Matson, the fresh RM. We knew he was all excited to have

missionaries over- he and his brothers had all cooked a huge dinner

for us. So I felt horrible saying anything. Sooo I just put a few

bites on my plate and tried to do my best with them. Anyways, finally I

couldn't make it any longer so I admitted I was feeling sick all day

so they didn't think I just hated the food. Dillon gave me a

priesthood blessing. Honestly this experience built my testimony of

priesthood blessings.

     Sure enough, we couldn't have left minutes later than we did. I

didn't make it home. No more than five minutes later, right smack in

the middle of Main Street. And all the way home. And it didn't stop

until late Saturday night. It was horrible. The first time I was able

to eat anything was Sunday morning- a slice of bread. I still felt

horrible Sunday morning but I knew we needed to be at church for

Laura, so we went.

     It was a good thing we did. Gino didn't show up for church so

sister smith and I had to translate for her all day. I remembered my

blessing promised I would be well enough to return to what I needed

to- and I knew we needed to be there for them.

Anyways, I'm feeling better today. I'm sticking to a Gatorade and

Powerade diet for now. Thank goodness for pday. We've got a super busy

night tonight and a crazy week ahead so I need to get my rest now.

Maybe one day I'll look back and laugh at this, but not yet. Hahaha.

Church is true.

Hermana Sears

"Sometimes we want to have growth without challenges and to develop

strength without any struggle. But growth cannot come by taking the

easy way. We clearly understand that an athlete who resists rigorous

training will never become a world-class athlete. We must be careful

that we don't resent the very things that help us put on the divine

nature."

-Paul V. Johnson, quorum of the seventy, (President Johnson's brother)