6/10/2016

mom hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii 

mumbo jumbo. ok here you go. 

I sure hope you are having fun in blanding right now taking care of your mommy. 

tell her hello back and that I truly hope her foot returns to its normal state soon enough. Ask her if she will go to the Kathmandu restaurant with me someday after the mission hahaha. :) 

I agree with going on a cruise when I get home. To... tahiti? or New zealand because I wanna go there someday soon. There's a sister here from nz and she is cooler than cool. 

this is weird that I'm leaving soon. I don't really know what to think. some nights I have a really hard time sleeping because I'm so excited and sometimes I wanna hide under a blanket made of words that say "je ne parle pas francais" 

Glad you got to go on lots of walks and cry with gma. I miss blanding haha. :) 

are you loving the desert? 

mom  just tell me how you are. just straight up are you happy? and are you pleased with life and do you feel sad sometimes? are you pumped for the cruise to alaska??  I am bummed that maybe we won't get to talk. but ca va

I GOT YOUR PACKAGE BEST THING EVER THANKS SO MUCH HAHAHA. my favorite things. That was really sweet of you to think of me so much. 

Hey since this is like the last week I'll be able to ask for things.... can you send me some oxy acne face wash? I can't actually think of anything else I need right now.. If I do i'm sure I can find it in the mtc store. I think I'll try and send a lot of things home this week. 

no estoy ni eieeeeeeeeee

I dont know how to spell that. 

Hey though, it sounds like you had a CRAZY fou week and I'm so sorry about that because you always have a crazy week. every week for you is taxing. I don't know how you keep it up. you have to worry about so many people and yourself. what the heck. 

But are you doing ok? I know val meant a lot to you and that he's been a big influence in your life and you in his. that's what friendship is. I have realized here as I'm leaving in the next little tiny bit that I think I came to the mtc not really just to learn tahitian, french, and the gospel, but I came for a few different people: 

Soeur barton

soeur mendenhall

me

Christ. 

Because they have influenced me and maybe I have influenced them. Actually the soeurs told me that I had but I don't know about jesus. haha He mostly is just becoming my best friend slowly and I'm not sure how this magical thing called the atonement works, but it really does. here I come, tahitians. 

Anyway, I think that of all the things we will have after we die, which are not many, it's interesting that we will have PEOPLE. all the people we once knew. they are the most important and I know you were so important to val. thanks for being important to me too. :) 

thanks for being you. Glad you were able to meet the legend carolyn :)

are you pumped for the cruise!!? 

later pops. e metua tane maitai roa oe. 

Overcome 6/3/2016

Hello my lovely family. I read some really sad news just now about the loss of a good friend and example this morning. I just want to put in my two bits about a man named Val Durrant. 

I'm not aware of the whole story, how this came to pass, or what everyone is going through/thinking right now, but that does't change how I feel. I feel great sadness knowing that someone so kind and loving is not here with us anymore. Every time I saw Val, whether at a track meet, a reunion, or at great gma d's house, he was sure, always SURE, to give me a hug and ask me how I was doing. He's like, my great uncle. he had no obligation to do that and honestly I wouldn't have been offended if he didn't. but he did, and I felt a great respect for him for that. I still do. 

I have learned so much here in the past 6 weeks and i just want everyone reading this to KNOW THAT I KNOW. this life is not all. this life is short, and maybe not all sweet, but it means something. People move in and out of the veil as part of a process that is bigger than us, which is out of our control. only God controls that process. All we can do is live and be a part of it, and find beauty in it, seeing the light of Christ in other peoples faces. We are here because he lives and we too can live with his perfect happiness and glory. I am grateful for this knowledge. val has the light of christ and it hasn't left him. He is still there and moving on to an important purpose. He loves all of you still and so does our lord and savior Jesus Christ. he has surmounted all so trust in him.

"These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." 

John 16:33

so be not overcome with grief. 

I love and miss all of you. talk to you later. thanks for all the support and letters and happiness chaque jour. :)

Belly Button 5/27 2016

Hi my beautiful people. this place is so funny. I laugh so much. I think actually i'm just losing it hahaha but i don't even care!! heres a journal entry from sunday just to give you a taste. 

sometimes s. mendenhall sneezes when she eats mints. 

i love s. butler. she reminds me of teesh. it makes me feel like i have my sissy here at the mtc. she just told me i'm a cinnamon roll; " too good for this world." 

s. barton just sang "o divine redeemer" for sister's conference and pulled out this insane opera solo. whaaaa? 

yesterday it was s. ortega's bday and her sis sent her a pinata. we played that game where you eat cookies by putting them on your forehead. grandma sent me some sparkling cider and cute little plastic cups (AND NUTELLA) for "hump week" neeldess to say, there waz partying last night. all the sisters came into our room and sat on the floor and talked about... boys. are we missionaries? not when drinking from margarita glasses and eating nutella apparently. 

wait just listen. s butler and i decided our church is built on jell-o because of utah. "how wobbly a foundation."

note to self: the articles of faith are cool. 

I just realized that once I have my period 18 times, I will finish my mission. AH! yikes. 

we were doing a warm up at choir and singing just the 1st note/word of a phrase, which was "but." I couldn't stop laughing because we were singing this glorious, harmonized note with all the vigor of our souls and it sounded like we were just proclaiming about the derriere. 

today on our temple walk our zone got in a circle and played the animal sounds game. 

s. mendenhall just borrowed elder eakins shoe polish. why 

s barton and I have this thing where she sometimes adopts an alter ego named david and he is my dad. s rodriguez is my mom and my name is opal. ask me how this happened and I will tell you I don't know. 

okay other than that, s. m and I accomplished a lot this week. we successfully climbed up the mtc walls back to back like in the emperors new groove and taught 3 lessons in tahitian. oh my goodness. how does one learn two languages when they can't even speak one. 

haha but wowzers this week flew. if every mission week is the same, I'm going to be home like tomorrow. I decided I love it here and I'm scared to leave. but so pumped at the same time. tahitians are cool people. 

other things: I'm sad that sheri egbert's mom passed away. please give her a hug for me. 

I love curtis anderson

I laughed really hard about how dad bought all these mangoes for me and ate them. thanks dad

all of you are hilarious. 

I think some women are happy with teesh and I today. I just finished all of the endowment names I had that teesh found. It's cool to think that this kind of work can be accomplished for those in the spirit world by a 13 year old and a 19 year old. 

sorry for my spelling. thank you so much for the letters this week and for all the endless support and love. :) I wish I had time to say more and give more but alas, there is no time. you're all amazing!! 

I started crying the other night because I was emotional and s. barton called me audrey. it was precious. 

love, au jour dhui (that's "today" in french but it sounds like my name. confusing)

Well, here I am again and I am in the MTC. the missionary training center. unless mtc stands for "muscle tearing center" like my zone sisters and I decided after working out hardcore. but I'm definitley being trained to be a missionary. being a missionary is cool. it's also really hard but wow so much fun! is it supposed to be fun? I don't know maybe i'm a rule breaker. 

Well a lot happened. one of our teachers proposed to his girlfriend, 

it was s. ortegas bday and we partied with a pinata and some food in our room. there is much food in our room. my gma sent me a "hump week" package that contained lots and lots of happiness and some plastic margarita cups with sparkling cider. so we were posh. 

our other teacher tried to kill a pig. 

we had some heart to hearts. 

I ate more peanut butter

I laughed so hard every day. my zone is killer. 

we tried to learn tahitian and teach in tahitian. It's difficutl to tell the restoration story when you forget the word for "priesthood." 

we successfully called the number two "pistachio" and "bellybutton" 

the word for bellybutton is "pito" if anyone wanted to know. 

the word for two is "piti"

I swore a lot by accident. 

you don't get to know pistachio. haha 

my comp and I climbed up the wall like in emperors new groove. gotta stay entertainted. 

there's a lot of sv kids here! I got to host Brittnie Jenkins and then I saw megan sidwell!!! ahhh I love them. also max christiensen is here and so is louisa dayton. shout out to sv missionaries. 

I would be leaving next week if I were just french speaking. this is a weird thought, becuase holy smokes am I not ready! lol

this week FLEW. I don't even know how it is today right now. 

I flipping love being a missionary. like seriously, I'm lnly in the mtc and I love it so much. sometimes I hate some things but I have been humbled these past 6 weeks to decide that hating anything is prideful. just forget what you hate and if you can't get rid of it, learn a way to love it. thats my soapbox for rn. 

JESUS LOVES YOU. ok that's for real. 

sorry for the bad spelling. I'm aware of it but I don't care enough to hit delete a thousadn teimse. see? that wasn't even on purpose. 

Just wanna take a moment and thank everyone who supports me and writes to me. I am so sorry I can't reply to everyone. you know you are a dang lucky missionary when you have too many emails to even read. I wanna cry right now because I'm so blessed. :) maybe I'll cry when I go do laundry in a minute. 

rest assured that every single person on this email list means so much to me and I love you all individually. please know that! and please go smile at someone today! c'est important. 

je vous aime!! a plus tard.