Week 40

Hi dear family and friends.

We thought spring was finally coming (Sister Mondano and I were
enjoying frolicking on the streets in just cardigans far too much) and
then BAM. It started blizzarding today. I guess this is a little bit
like home. (Dear family, at least we are freezing together.)

This week was FAST. Too fast. Sister Mondano and I joke that we sort
of feel like a married couple. I cook, she cleans, we hold each other
by the hand when we have to inch our way past vicious dogs to ring
doorbells (I tell you--it's terrrifying). Ironically, we also
discovered that the Gospel Library App on the iPad has the Institute
Manual for Marriage Prep. Don't get the wrong idea. It's more
applicable than you might think. Some good reading while we do leg
lifts in the morning. Ha.

I've been thinking very much about prayers. And how they are answered.
Lately we've been seeing it answered in the forms of other people.

The other week, we prayed to find Filipinos to teach. That day we ran
into five of them. That same day, one of those ladies had prayed to
God to know what to do with her life as she saw it crumbling before
her. And then we walked in the door. "You are angels," she tells us.
Just for the record, I don't really think of myself as an angel. No
angel has bedhead like I do.

Yesterday, I was sitting playing the sacrament hymn praying that two
of the five investigators set to come to church would actually show.
On the last line of the last verse of the hymn, the door slides open
and they come in from the drifting snow. (PS--Sado sacrament meeting
attendance is breaking records. It's not us, though. It's all a
miracle. Keep on praying ...)

This morning, I prayed for a little pick-me-up. (Let's just say
Sundays are not exactly a day of rest as a missionary ... ) This
afternoon, I got two emails from two of my very best friends. Call it
coincidence, fine. I like to say it's all little (or BIG) blessings
from Kamisama.

I guess the moral of the story is if you feel something, JUST DO IT.
Sometimes Sister Mondano and I will just feel like we have to do
something, and then we wonder if we should do it, and then we wonder
why we are wondering if we should do it. As I heard Elder Bednar once
say during stake conference at BYU, "If it's good, then quit worrying
about if it's the spirit or not. Just do it."

I just read President Uchtdorf's talk "Waiting on the Road to
Damascus." He says it best:

"Often, the answer to our prayer does not come while we are on our
knees but while we are on our feet serving the Lord and serving those
around us. Selfless acts of service and consecration refine our
spirits, remove the scales from our spiritual eyes, and open the
windows of heaven. By becoming the answer to someone else's prayer, we
often find the answer to our own."

Just something to think about. I remember one phone call with my
mother whom I love so much. It was a few months before I left for my
mission and I was stressing about something, probably something that
doesn't matter whatsoever. She just says, "The best thing for you to
do is just go serve someone." Well said.

That's all I've got for now. Thanks for all your love and letters and
emails. They mean the world to me.

Love, Sister Margaret Willden