Gratitude List

Dear Family & Friends:

What I am thankful for from this past week!

- The chance to be a missionary.

- To have the gospel in my life.

- To be serving with Sister Chirinos.

- Delicious meals with members.

- Warm clothes.

- To live with members.

- Service at the memory clinic.

- Coming home and finding a plate of brownies in our room from Emily!

- Tracting in the cold, because more people allow you into their home to get out of the cold!

- Following spiritual promptings!

- Dropping by a part member's house.  The wife who isn't a member has been coming to church for 9 years and has had a calling in primary with her husband for about that long as well.  She has such a strong testimony of the gospel, and decided that she wants to just go forward and be baptized.

- Having a mission president who holds Priesthood keys that allow him to receive revelation for the missionary work in this mission.

- A lesson with Greg, and how he has already planned out his baptismal program and both of his parents are planning on coming to his baptism!!  Which is huge!

- Being able to take sisters from the ward out with us!  There is such a spirit that members have that adds to the missionary spirit!  Like we were able to take our Relief Society President to a lesson with a part-member family, where the kids are members, but the parents are not.  It was on Wednesday night before mutual and activities days.  The member has daughters the same age and so she knew all of the details for the activities and we were able to get rides for both of the daughters to go to the activities that evening!  In addition to having a wonderful lesson as we read and discussed the story of Nephi breaking his bow and how we can learn from his example!

- We had interviews with President Jensen and what a wonderful experience it always is to receive counsel from him!  He truly is called of God to preside over this mission at this time!

- Right before my interview as we were in the hall President Jensen put a name tag on his suit jacket and said "Sister Call, how do you like my new name tag that I found?  Doesn't it look great?"  He was wearing one of my name tags.  So when I was serving in the Des Moines Ward last spring I had lost a name tag and figured that I had lost it when we had been out tracting or something, but apparently it had fallen off when we were at the mission home for Sister Jensen's birthday, and they found my name tag in the couch last week.

- Being able to feel the love that the Jensen's have for me and for all they serve

- Temperatures in the 40's and 50's Saturday and Sunday!

- Not having to wear tights or boots on Sunday!

- Have my eyes opened to the perspective of Mission President's and their wives as missionaries return home.  Sister Jensen had me promise that I would come back and see her, because she said that it is so hard for her to see missionaries return home, because she never knows if she will ever see them again, whereas, when parents send their child on a mission they know that in 18 months or 2 years they will see their child again.

- Carlie used her last vacation day of the year to come to church yesterday with Tommy!  It was stake conference, and so she was able to meet President and Sister Jensen as well as many members from the ward!

- After Stake Conference we were able to go to Tommy and Carlie's with their home teachers for the first time, and it was such a testimony builder of how inspired the home teaching and visiting teaching programs are.  As well as the home teachers for Tommy and Carlie are such a great fit, because they both grew up in Iowa and both are converts to the church.  One of the home teachers conversion story is very similar to Carlie's!

- I am so thankful for my family and friends that I can look up to and learn from their examples!

- I am so thankful for a Father in Heaven who loves us enough to have sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to perform the Atonement and to provide a way that we can return home to our Father in Heaven!

I love you all and hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Love, Sister Call