Week 32

Dearest family,

I missed you all a lot this week but definitely don't miss the atmosphere of starting up a new semester....so kudos for surviving that.

This week was really hard and discouraging but in my frustration i took some time to clean a little bit and i found a letter mom sent me to open when i first got to the country. i remember reading it on the plane over and (sorry for my honesty...) i remember just glazing over it thinking "oh okay, here goes mom with trying to be all philosophical and give me all this spiritual advice about a mission" i kinda glazed over it and put it away. Well, i reread it a couple days ago when i found it and every point of advice she gave to me pierced my heart and was exactly what i needed to hear. I talked with my companion a little bit about it and she agreed that while mothers may suffer or miss us the most they are the ones who keep us out on missions. Satan has been working on me hard this week and, unfortunately, the option was very clear in my mind that if i am wasting my time here or feeling like im not really benefiting anyone, i can just go home. i dealt with a lot of humiliation and awkward situations in preparing to serve a mission, that i could go home and just deal with them all again and just tell people it wasn't what i wanted to do anymore or i wasn't being as effective as i could be back in Boston studying and working or something. wow. i know bad. So i went through my call packet and and my letter to the prophet about how i have been called to serve for 18 (what i thought were short) months. but its hard. but, what a blessing i found that letter. every sentence which when i first read it five months ago seemed dishoveled and all over the place, was the advice i really needed for this time. Especially this, "..how God honors your commitment may not be readily apparent and it may be years before you fully appreciate and see His hand in all that you are doing now." So thank you mom, really, that letter has helped me so much this week and will be close to my heart the rest of my mission. Thank you all for your support and prayers while i am on this adventure. and i am still on it. yes giving up is an option, Satan has made me very aware of that, but im choosing to not listen to him. i have to think the harder he works to not have me out here, the more he and heavenly father knows the great blessings that will come to me and those i serve while i am here. and it may be years before i can see any of it. but as long as i keep the faith that they will come, i am going to continue serving.

This week we actually had a fun/interesting/very kylie opportunity. One of the less actives that the elders are working with works at a facility for alcoholics to come and stay and try to get clean. He invited the missionaries to come and give a presentation about our general beliefs in god and the atonement in our lives. The missionaries im serving with now have heard a little bit about my enthusiasm to serve and work with vulnerable populations and homeless people so they were excited to invite me to come with them and tour the facility and give our spiel. This facility reminds me exactly like the respite facility i worked at in Boston which gives the disadvantage a place to stay to clean up and get some medical attention. We gave an hour and a half 'presentation'/testimony about what we believe. It was pretty much an hour and a half of good old fashion "soap-boxing" just telling them like it is. Above everything, it was great language practice for each of us to just talk for half our straight about what we believe. And our audience was, unfortunately, a lot of "perma-fried" people who don't have a whole lot of potential to become investigators, but it was a really neat experience. (perma-fried meaning that after so many years of alcohol and drug abuse, there isn't a whole lot going on up there). it was a neat blessing/opportunity for me because during this hard week, heavenly father let me have a little taste of what i want to pursue after the mission. But i decided that my best service to these people is still my future medical service, but it was fun to be a pastor for a day.

Another great blessing of the week was that one of investigators, Irena, who we haven't had much contact with came to church. we didn't meet with her for about a month because she was going on a trip to Greece. She is in her thirties and still pretty good looking, so we weren't quite sure if she'd try to live the standards while she was there or even have interest in meeting with us again when she got back. but she did come back and came to church. and we found out that she did not go on this trip alone but with a friend....who just so happens to be a member of the church. She said on their 36 hour bus ride there they read the book of Mormon together and watched a movie about Moses and the children of Israel...(i was thinking prince of Egypt or something so i asked her if it was a kids movie, "no, no it was super spiritual. you should watch it.") SO Irena was in good hands and the lord was definitely aware of her during this time when we couldn't watch out for her. earlier in the summer we talked with her about baptism and she said SHE'D tell us US when she was ready, which is right but a little discouraging as a missionary, and yesterday she leaned over to me during relief society and said, "i think i'll be ready to be baptized in about a week, i'll let you know" ....WOW. thank you heavenly father for just doing your work while we dangled in wavering faith about her. This is the Lords work and we merely get to be a part of it. barely (another piece of advice from moms letter)

So i knoow, i really did have a good week but the battle inside is the hardest to fight. i guess that's why im supposed to forget myself. My presidents advice to me about that is that the time i spend thinking about myself is the time Satan spends filling me with doubts. so i shouldn't focus on myself so Satan doesn't have the time/opportunity to do that. ugh. life lessons. but i know that at the end of this mission the greatest evidence that i will have that i served a mission will not be the journals or the pictures or souvenirs, but it will be how my character changed. Same principle of life too. When we die the only evidence we will have to present our heavenly father that we lived on this earth and made the most of it is how our character and personality changed and moved in the right direction. its just another way to explain that the purpose of life is not to "do" but to 'become"

I love you all, thanks again for your love and support <3

sister kylie little