January 7, 2019

Good morning, star shine, the earth says hello! Hahaha long-distance fist bump to whoever can name that movie. Anywho, this has been another great week! Sister Gatchalian and I have been tracting pretty much everywhere in Wilmington trying to find people we can teach. It's a bit of a struggle though because Wilmington is so small that we're running out of places to go, and the elders in Wilmington are assigned to half of the town so we really don't have that many places to look for new people. We are blessed to have a car to drive around in during this cold weather, but because we have a limited number of miles we can put on the car each month, we're having to be really frugal with how far we drive each day, so it's been hard trying to get out to some of the towns that are further away to try and find people out there who might be ready to hear our message. We're trying to work with the elders in Wilmington and see if we can switch our halves of the town after we've knocked on all the doors we can, so hopefully that will work out.

Sister Gatchalian has also been feeling kinda sick this week, so we've had to stay in our apartment so that she can get some rest and so that walking around out in the cold rain doesn't make it worse. I thought I'd go crazy just sitting in the apartment, but it's actually been a blessing, because with all that extra time I've been able to do a ton of Book of Mormon reading. I was in 2 Nephi and I've been able to read up to 4 Nephi! The Book of Mormon is so powerful and I don't think I've ever been able to really feast upon the words inside as much as I have been able to in the past week. The Book of Mormon offers so much comfort and strength to me, and if you have a question about anything in your life, I promise you the Book of Mormon holds those answers...you just need to read and pray about it! It's awesome!

We were able to talk with a sister we met last week on Saturday. It turns out the father of her children left her on Sunday, which is why she wasn't able to make it to church. She doesn't have a job or much money and is really just struggling right now. She has really strong faith though, and she knows God has a plan for her. We reached out to the ward to ask them if they could help her with some basic necessities like food, toiletries, and a place for her to wash her clothes, and they have been so wonderful. On Sunday so many members of the ward brought boxes and bags of everything she can use. We're going to go with the Relief Society president to deliver them tonight, and I know she is going to be able to feel of their love for her. Don't be afraid to share Christ's light and your testimony of all He has done for you, others need to feel of that light.

We explored downtown Wilmington a bit today:

They have little area downtown where
you can sit and read a book. Kinda interesting.

This is from our Christmas conference a few weeks ago: