smiling faces and grateful hearts🧡

 Hello my friends! What a bonkers week it has been! My pday is Tuesday this week because of an INCREDIBLE service we got to be a part of which I'll talk more about later:) I can't believe another week has flown by! 

HIGHLIGHTS:

• THANKSGIVING: Thanksgiving this year was so so much fun! It was honestly my favorite Thanksgiving I have probably ever had! We started the day with a turkey bowl with our zone which was just so much fun! The perfect start to our morning! Then we got to spend the entire rest of the day with Bishop Varney's family and the Naillon family who are just the greatest people ever! We ate the yummiest dinner ever and then played so many fun games! They have this fun scratch off adventure book so we scratched one off and ended up wearing 80s attire doing aerobics in the front yard. Then we played Nertz, Telestrations, and Codenames. It was such a good good day! I hope you all had great Thanksgivings! 
• FESTIVAL OF NATIVITIES: Yesterday was so special! We got to help set up for the festival of nativities here in Longview! We were there from 8:30-4:30 and it's not even all set up yet. You'll get to hear more about this next week! 
• SERVICE: This week our WML got a random text from a random lady asking for help moving, so us and the elders got to go help her! She is going through such a tough situation but we got all her stuff moved out and put into a storage unit in just two hours! She was so so grateful and it was so sweet! I love getting to serve:)
• SUSAN: Our friend Susan is just incredible! We brought a member to her lesson this week that I have never thought to bring to lessons and it turned out just perfect! She ended up watching church on zoom too and loved it! Keep praying for her! 

LOWLIGHTS:

• SICK DAYS: We had a couple days that we had to stay inside this week cause Sister Harris was sick so that was sad.
• COUNTDOWN: The members have started counting down the days left and it is getting so real! I am so beyond sad that my mission is coming to an end!

SPIRITUAL THOUGHT:

This week I have been really focusing on gratitude and I've realized how joyful it is to be grateful! Life as a missionary is not always easy, but there can always be joy when we are grateful. I have been able to recognize so many tender mercies on my mission and I have come to know so much about our Heavenly Father by doing so. He is so heavily in the details of our lives and its incredible! 

I love you all! See you soon! Have a great week!

- Sister Stringham