Letter 5 -- It's Time for a Letter

I LOVE going online and seeing pretty much all my family members on at the same time :) Thanks for the support everyone. I LOVE YOU!!!!!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING AMERICA!!! Haha I completely forgot it was Thanksgiving. A man from Europe had to remind me the day after Thanksgiving!!!! Haha. So in honor of the holiday, Sister Mendenhall and I took a slice of sandwich turkey, rolled up a few dried cranberries, and enjoyed ourselves a feast :) I want you to know that I am grateful for YOU!!! So grateful for my family and all those I love so much who have helped me prepare for this amazing experience. I'm so grateful for this gospel, and the opportunity I have to share it with everyone in Canada. And I'm so grateful for Canada!! They are my family here :) I hope you enjoyed the holidays!

So yesterday was AMAZING!!!! We had SEVEN investigators and their families came to church yesterday!!! Not to mention many less-active families and part-member families came as well. Glorious. It was the greatest, most stressful day so far in my mission haha. I was so excited about how filled the room was, my mind was racing so much trying to keep track of who all was there and needed to be helped that I didn't notice until half-way through Sacrament meeting that all my fingernails were pretty much destroyed from being picked at haha. The spirit was SO strong in sacrament meeting. Everyone had a friend to sit with in their classes, and the lessons were inspired!!! God has a plan for everything :) So grateful.

Jared sent me a message about Spiritual Impressions and I tried to work on that this last week. I really want to show the Lord that I am here to work and willing to follow the promptings of the spirit. It is like learning a new language haha trying to discern the spirit from other thoughts, and having the courage to act on the prompting. On Tuesday, I looked at our less-active list and prayed for names to pop out of people that we needed to visit. I then told Sister Mendenhall and went we on the search :) This week we met C... R..., and the T... family (Taryn they are from Thailand :)). They are both inactive, for their separate reasons, and they truly are AMAZING!!! I LOVE meeting with less-actives. I love asking them about their conversion story and seeing the light of Christ enter their eyes as they remember their testimonies of the gospel. It makes me so sick to see these amazing people be "blinded by the craftiness of men" and search for more than they need to (Jacob 4:13-15). But when they bear their testimonies, it is so powerful. They will come back to church. I know it. God did not give Sister Mendenhall and I these impressions to visit them for no reason.

Favorite song: "Scatter Sunshine"

Theme of the week: James 1:27 "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this. To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."

     When we dedicate our time and attention to the people around us, and do our best to be "in the world but not of the world" we will experience TRUE, PURE JOY.

I spent too much time writing back and forth to my family that I am now out of time haha. I LOVE YOU ALL! This gospel is true! Keep your standards and strive to share your testimony as MUCH AS YOU CAN!!!! Remember: just keep smiling and God will make that smile work miracles :)

Will all my heart,

Sister Bodine

I have a little more time to write now.

Another story, On Friday, Sister Mendenhall and I got to go to this 79 year-old woman's house named C... R... She has needed a lot of help with her house so we went over on Friday and cleaned for a couple hours. I have never seen anything like it before. Poor C....'s kitchen was clustered from floor to ceiling with things. Trash everywhere, no place to sit, no room to cook. She told us there were dishes there that had been there for 3 YEARS!!! Her table was clustered with old bills and newspapers since 2010. It killed me. So we went to work :) Despite poor C...'s desire to keep everything (she's a collector) we convinced her to just start throwing away everything. I was in charge of the kitchen, Sister Mendenhall was in charge of the papers, and cute C... talked to us about her life while she stayed and drank apple juice :) I love her so much. I sang her "Where Can I Turn For Peace" (one of my favorite songs) and she started bawling. We are going to help her clean every week. So excited :)

 LOVE YOU ALL