Letter #68 1/13/2014 "Gratitude Oatmeal Returns"

Dear friends and family,

Honestly there is not much to report this week. We are still trying to work more in harmony with the ward. Retention of recently baptized members is a huge challenge. Let's put it this way: I have never been so greateful to have been raised in a fully-functioning ward as I am now. I wish you all could live what I'm living, see what I'm seeing, and hear what I'm hearing so you could better understand just how blessed we are. I used to complain about "Utah Mormons." Never again will I breathe a word of complaint.

That said, there are a few rays of sunshine breaking through the clouds:

I can't remember if I mentioned this before, but they assigned me to form and direct a ward choir. It has been a mental, emotional and physical challenge, but as always working in music still both wears me out and fills my soul.

We found the recent convert of my first companion, Hermana Harris. She specifically asked me to try to find him. He had dropped off the map for months, and we finally tracked him down. 18 years old and wandering from place to place. I'm so grateful to God for leading us to him. While we're wandering around lost, He knows exactly where His lost sheep are, and guides us to them.

I hope all is well back home-- but I suppose if it were easy you wouldn't be progressing or learning. I know you have trials and difficulties and frustrations. One thing I have learned to be grateful for is the fact that there are trials. One sentance of my patriarchal blessing has been the theme of this week:

"Be willing to accept light and truth in whatever form it may be..."

That form isn't always wrapped in pretty paper with a bow on top. Sometimes it comes in the form of chastisement or correction rudely given. Sometimes it comes in the form of extra, seemingly unfair responsabilities. We have to take it when it comes AND be grateful for it. He whom the Lord loveth He chastiseth.

I pray for you always.

Love you forever,

Hermana Phillip

Letter # 65 12/23/2013 Sarandí del Yí‏

Dearest Friends and Family,

I write to you once again from the Tres Cruzes mall in Montevideo. Things have been crazy for the past week. This is what happened:

Tuesday - Packing, saying goodbye to people, more packing, shopping, more packing.

Wednesday - Transfers. We had to get up extra early so I could finish packing. We also had the Christmas conference. Every zone in our mission prepared a musical number, and then all the valientes (that's what we call the people going home in their last transfer) bore their testimonies. They were only allotted up to 2 minutes, but missionaries talk a lot so they took about 6-8 minutes each. Between all that and the choir and the talks by President and Hermana Newsome, we were there for 3 hours in the conference. But then we had a delicious Christmas dinner to make up for it, plus I got a photo with all my mission buddies who were in the MTC with me. Then we got on the bus and traveled until dark to the city of Durazno to stay the night at a member's house because it was too late to travel to the area.

Thursday - Got up at 4 to catch the bus to Sarandí del Yí, had weekly planning, then went out to work. Placed a baptismal date! Lucía! Woohoo! Also met a progressing investigator, María, who will be baptized on the 29th! Woohoo!

Friday -. Normal day. We had the ward end-of-year dinner, so I got to meet a lot more members. While we were leaving, Hermana West (who lives in our house with us) was making a grand exit, waving her hat in the air and telling everyone to go to church on Sunday. She turned to leave and made the most spectacular fall I think I've ever seen. She skinned her knee on the concrete, but insisted she was fine. Poor thing-- as always I think your pride gets injured more than whatever is bleeding... We then ran home because we were late, and made me wait until after planning to clean and dress her knee. Good thing I have a first aid kit!

Saturday - Got up at 4 again to catch the bus back to Durazno for our District meeting. We'll have to do that every week, so I guess I'll get used to it. After the district meeting we barely caught our bus to Montevideo, because I'm in the choir. The stake in Montevideo put on a big concert in the temple parking lot and it was really cool. Rumor has it they are going to make a DVD of it, but I'll give you updates when I know for sure. We stayed in the temple hostel, after the event was over at 11:30.

Sunday - Woke up at 4 again because the sisters in our room at the hostel had to travel back to their areas. We stayed because we're too far away to go and come back. We went to church in the chapel near the temple and almost fell asleep during the Sacrament. It's been a while since that happened! After church the mission gave us lunch and we went out to work again for a few hours. We found this awesome guy who accepted to be baptized. Unfortunately he's from Canelones, so I'll have to pass the info over to a different zone. He's awesome. If we hadn't had to come to Montevideo, maybe he never would have been found. We had another performance that night and went to bed again at 11:45.

Monday - Woke up at 6 to clean our room, finally left the hostel. We traveled to Tres Cruzes and now I'm emailing you all. Now we have to go to the doctor because my companion has a checkup today, then we'll be traveling for the rest of the day. Hopefully we'll make it home before midnight...

I am very tired, but never to tired to count my blessings! I am so grateful for this mission, for my life, for the opportunity to sing-- although I much rather would have been in my area, we have a lot of work to do. I am so thankful for my companion, for the other hermanas, for President Newsome, for EVERYTHING!

I love you all and hope you are well.

Love you forever,

Hermana Phillips

Letter #56 10/21/2013 "Pasen otro día, capaz..."‏

Dear Family and Friends,

I'm sending pictures!

We're pretty excited about some upcoming baptisms. I'll let you know about those when they happen-- I can't jynx it. But if you want to pray for my investigators, these are the ones who have baptismal dates in upcoming weeks:

2nd of November - Milagros (13)

9th of November - Belén (8)

9th of November - Tony (

Prayers on their behalf would be much appreciated. Our biggest challenge, as always, is getting people to church. We are also concerned about Milagros and Belén, because they are young girls and will have difficulty remaining active once we leave because their families are not members. We are having a lesson today with Belén and her mom so-- prayers for that!

There's not a lot to report today, so I'll talk about the ward. Our ward is pretty small-- the total attendance this week was 56. All of the auxiliary and priesthood quorum presidencies are shorthanded. There were no active young women when we got here, and there are 2 active young men. We had a fun Young Women's activity last Thursday and I taught them how to make origami flowers. Belén came, even though she's only 8. I never thought I'd have to be able to explain how to do origami in Spanish. Vocab like "crease" and "flatten" weren't things they taught us in the MTC. I found myself saying "hagalo así" (do it like this) a lot. It was small but it was the first activity that I have successfully thought of, organized, and pulled off by myself (with the support of my companion and other leaders of course). It gave me more confidence to do other activities.

I'm thinking of starting a ward choir. I've talked to a lot of our less-actives and even a lot of investigators that don't want much to do with us anymore, and I think there would be a fair turnout. If I can convince one of the less-actives who is a piano teacher to come be the pianist, we might sound fairly good, too. I'm nervous to try, but it looks like God wants this to happen, and as they said in conference, when you're on the Lord's errand, you CAN'T fail. So I hope to be reporting positive results on that.

I also hope to be seeing some beautiful baby and wedding photos pretty soon too!

Love you forever,

Hermana Phillips