BANJO CITY | 3.11.19

hey y'all this week was a ROLLERCOASTER!!!

i am currently typing this correo electronico in the car on the way home from playing banjo for 4 hours straight and eating the most BOMB salad (kale,napa cabbage, dates, carrots, almond butter dressing...)

this email was interrupted when I realized that it was 6:01 hahHA here we go!! no weekly for me!!  

so here is my continuation of this unfinished work of art

so to begin, I wanted to clarify why I have absolutely been terrible at writing  group emails this week. And why my one group was really emo haha. Basically the past few weeks I have been working through a lot of personal emotional stuff?That has randomly been cropping up. To keep it short, I'll just summarize the past few weeks by saying it has had very few hours of sleep, lots of heart  pounding and anxiety, many priesthood blessings, and begging everyone I see for tips on how to get to sleep at night haha. It has been realllllly hard, but I am also learning a lot and rediscovering my motivations and desires to serve. God is also teaching me a whole lot about how to love my neighbor and understand other people's trials. I am super open about this and I went to the doctor and got on medication for anxiety!! 

(side note: just wanna say that I never really understood when people said they got anxiety on their missions. Like yo, all you do is talk to people and luv people all day! why would that be stressful! And honestly, I don't really know either why my body is becoming anxious, maybe bc we are very involved in trying to help others secure eternal salvation and it can be hard and daunting! Also Satan is trying to get us down! jaja.)

But yeah. The past few weeks have had a lot of really beautiful parts, too. 

We learned to play the Banjo!! beautiful soulful Baptist ballads, yodeling, hymns, and straight country music were all involved. It was truly one of the most blissful experiences of my life. I will purchase a banjo when I get home or sooner. I love that instrument a lot. I will probably attatch a video. 

We love our friend Tequiera. She is getting baptized at the end of this month! she is the only person I have ever met who isn't a member of the church who, without us pointing it out, has studied scriptures in the back of the little pamphlets we give out and studied different topics in the Index of the Book of Mormon. she is teeming with spiritual curiosity and intelligence. One of my favorite things in the world is listening to her shimmery soulful prayers at the end of each lesson. A special soul. 

my favorite scripture, that seems to keep running through my head. I absolutely love and agree with this statement, and have experienced this process myself. you can, too. 

"I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."

John 10:10 

AN ABUNDANT LIFE! is this not what we want? He is perfectly and infinitely generous and loving, and magnifies our imperfect, subtle efforts. 

I love my Savior, Jesus Christ. and I am thankful for this time I have to come to know Him better. 

please email me with something that has brought joy to your week!! 

this is where i live, and where Brother Covorruvias brings us FRESH doughnuts every other AM. life as a missionary is truly rough

3625 CR 3070 

Cookville, TX

75558

love you so much!!! que tengan una semana bonita :))))

1. my family when I told them my CRIMINAL MINDS EXPERIENCE OF THE WEEK (Mount Vernon edition)

LISTEN TO THIS!!

we went by the home of a member of our church in a teeny tiny town called Mount Vernon and a really grumpy, dramatic, and really depressed looking woman answered the door and said "we're not interested". We left her with a card, and went on our merry way. 2 days later, we stopped by someone after our dinner appointment in the aforementioned tiny town. as we were in the middle of testifying of the divinity of Jesus Christ as our Savior, she was like "hey!! I read something in the newspaper about y'all the other day..." we soon found out that there was a house here in mount vernon where a woman had kidnapped and held a man hostage from February 14th (<3ohlala) till February 27th, and that 2 representatives from a church group had been know to have gone by during that period. She showed us a tiny mugshot of a sallow- faced woman... who we didn't recognize. We dismissed it, and assumed it probably wasn't us, but drove by the house in question after the visit. The second we neared the address of the crime my companion and I just started SCREAMING in unison- turns out, it was that very house of the gaunt, haunting woman who had rejected us and given us the heebie jjeebies. So we literally were at the time a member of our ward was bound, gagged, and being detained with no food or water!!! ahhhhh omg. it was so crazy. so we had to give a report to the sherriff and she is in jail now. 

texas is soooowild. I am learning a lot of things out here haha. 

2. banjo citi: tuning edition 

3. banjo citi: LEANING ON THE EVERLASTING ARMS!!! edition. 

4. a cuuuute painting of a cow in a cuuuuuute coffee shop, called Jo's. 

5. spent one day in Tyler, Texas!! it's nice out there.