NO TRANSFERS HERE TONIGHT! Nonono transfers here tonight...

OYE PAPIIIII!!!! Guess WHAT! So you know how my companion and I are like... best friends? Well, we were SURE it was too good to last, so we were preparing to be split. FALSE! We have AT LEAST ONE MORE TOGETHER!! Do you know what this means?!? I'LL BE WITH HER FOR MY BIRTHDAY!! And this will be even better than the last! I know I went to a Scottish Highland Games Festival AND the Russian Ballet, but I'm pretty sure being a missionary with one of your best friends is better. WORD.

In other news, WE HAVE TWO PEOPLE ON DATE FOR BAPTISM!! One of these is a 9 year old girl. I'm her biggest fan. She is SO cute. And she loves us so much! :) She'll be baptized February 7th. AN EARLY BIRTHDAY PRESENT. Also, we're teaching this super cool guy who came up to US and asked us to teach him and wants to get baptized. AAAAND HE IS 100% READY. Done. Awesome. We've seen like 9 trillion miracles this week. We ALMOST MADE ALL OF OUR WEEKLY GOALS THIS WEEK!! :) I'm so darn giddy right now.

Hey dad, just so you know... there's an Elder here and we call him "corporate." He's just a boss. We were discussing "corporate-ness," and everything we said... WAS YOU. And they all tell me how they see "corporate" characteristics in me. IT MAKES ME SO HAPPY. I was walking to the car in a blazer, holding an iPad, talking to a potential investigator on the iPhone, and I put on my big New York looking coat. I walked back to the missionaries, and they were all just like "...that was so corporate!!" Bahahahaha! Corporateness is my favorite thing, so when you email me things about your huge deals closing and talking with attorneys, it just makes my day <3 :)

So I love my companion, I love my area, I love our investigators and people we work with, I'm beginning to love the ward, and I'm just TERRIFIED of what Heavenly Father is preparing me for... He's giving me the best companions and areas... He's going to wake me up soon, I JUST KNOW IT!! But I'll be fine. I CAN DO IT. I. AM. WILLIS!

Remember the first little while of my mission when I was a cry baby about everything? Yeah, I'm so happy right now. Just real genuine happy. THAT'S GOOD. I hope I'm past all my cry baby days and I'm not just happy because of my awesome surroundings, but when things get rough, I'll still be able to be happy... YEAH.

We've had a lot of success this week. LET'S CARRY IT OVER INTO THE NEXT TRANSFER! Y'all are awesome. I was talking about y'all to my compi and she thinks y'all are the coolest. Which is true!! :) We were listening to a John Bytheway talk (Tour de Family, o algo asi), and Bytheway said something about how your siblings should be your best friends, and your mom and dad also. I thought about it and thought "Dang. Mom and dad done good! THEY ARE MY BEST FRIENDS." So whenever you think you've failed in ANY aspect, just remember you raised your family right. I shared a spiritual thought with a woman who is having a hard time with her family, and it was Proverbs 31:10, 28. I love her so much, and I was able to share with her some struggles we've had, but there's never been anything too great to tear down our family. Mom, if you're crying, SUCCESSSSS :) I just love you all A LOT. I always loved you before, and recognized that, but I think I appreciate you all so much more now that I don't have access to you all, all the time.

So I will send you pictures now. I love you all a looooooot.

Hermana Willis

My favorite Mexican Sanchez explaining to us that Pbaum (pronounced "pee-oom") is a word. We still don't know what it means, but we say it all the time :)

HARDLY TWO DAY OLD BABY HORSE AND THE MOMMA. I LOVE HORSES. We teach a family who lives on a horse farm. Every time we come, I always talk to the horses <3

The sisters heart attacked our car. I LOVE THEM!!!

UTAH. GoodNESS, this is awesome. I hope this isn't against some law... BUT LOOK! There's a bulletin board DESIGNATED just for wedding announcements. Boooooom

Mi compi makes me platanoooossss!!! :D

DESAYUNO DE CAMPEONEEEEES!!!! Tostadas con aguacate, platanos, y JUUUUGOOOO!! That was my greenest juice yet, and it was HEAVEN :) Thanks again (a thousand times) for the juicer. It makes me whole :)

Priesthood. For real.

SO! This past week was PSYCHO. I was in a big pile of crud, so I felt. I just didn't want to do anything. I felt like I COULDN'T do anything, so I didn't want to go out and prove myself right. I felt awful. And I was having all sorts of confusing thoughts, so I was in a pile of DOO-DOO. I realized that I hadn't been to the temple SINCE NOVEMBER. Which is a long time for me, since I go twice a month. I NOW SEE THE HUGE BLESSING IT IS IN MY LIFE. I literally felt physically, spiritually, and emotionally DRAINED. Like I couldn't take another step. It was bad. So we went to the temple and that helped a lot. THEN, we had President interviews. We were walking down the hall and he said "So Sister Willis how are you doing?" I told him I was doing ok, and he said "Why just ok?" I told him "I was hoping you'd be able to help me figure that out." So we sad down in the room where he was conducting interviews. We knelt, he prayer, and before he was even in his seat he just BLURTED out what was on my mind. So naturally, I started to cry, and we discussed almost everything that was on my mind. He told me some things about myself that I never thought could be possible, and some of the things he said and promised literally changed my mission and my life. I can't explain it. But my GOODNESS. The Priesthood is real. And President McCune was called to be my mission president, and I KNOW Heavenly Father knew I would need not just a mission president LIKE him, but HIM as my president. I'm 6 months into the mission, and while I can look back on these past 6 months and he happy with them, I want to be able to look back on this coming year and have absolutely not one regret. I don't want to say "I wish I hadn't worried about that" or "I wish we had worked harder that day" or "I wonder what would have happened if I had followed that prompting. I wish I had!" This week was a game changer.

My companion is only talking to me in Spanish, and EVERYTHING SHE SAYS IS FUNNIER IN SPANISH. It's awesome. She's literally the best person I've ever known. I don't know why Heavenly Father keeps pampering me with the best Spanish sisters in this mission! I don't know what I'm going to do when I get a rough comp. Eeesh. Well, Hermana Morla and I are making goals and WORKING ON THEM. Wait, WHAT?! Yeah. We write them down and put them where we see them, so we're progressing! Woot woot! :)

Oh, I was drugged and almost died.

JUST KIDDING! :)

Preface: The night before (Friday night) I felt MEGA nauseous. I don't know why, but I really just felt AWFUL. It was one of those body-crippling nausea-fits. Not crippling, buuut my whole body feels like noodles made of jello. My muscles and bones just felt like they were made of marshmallows. MY BODY WAS MADE OF SWEETS, obviously. Sooo I asked the ZL's for a blessing. Before the blessing, they were talking to me about how they want me to continue to have faith in the priesthood and this blessing. That if I will keep faith, I can be completely healed from whatever is bothering me. So I was like "Yeah ok, I know the priesthood is real, let's just do this blessing so I can feel better." So then they gave me a cool blessing. I didn't feel better immediately, but I didn't expect to. So the next day I felt pretty ok. Buuuut later in the day this happened...

We went to a new member family's house, and I wasn't feeling well, so they gave me te de aniz. Mom, do you know what aniseed is? Because IT IS DELICIOUS. But My companion thinks it made my blood pressure drop it like it's hot. They gave it to me before the lesson we were going to share with them. I drank it. We had the lesson. We said a closing prayer. We stood up and started talking. I was yawning A LOT, and it wasn't until we stood up that I realized it wasn't because I was tired, but because I wasn't breathing. Oops. My breathing was shallow and not frequent enough. Everything seemed heavy. My clothes. The air. Everything was just too much, and I was literally about to faint. The room seemed darker than it was before, and like it was in slow motion. I thought I was just going crazy though. So we were standing there, and I couldn't even hear what was being said. All I could hear was in my head "Sit down, or you're going to pass out." So in the middle of somebody's sentence I said in baaaad Spanish "I need to sit down, I feel like I'm going to *hand motions*..." So they all flipped out "ARE YOU OK?!" And when I eased their minds, they went back to talking. I sat there while they chatted for a minute or two, then when I stood up and was ready to leave, they were all super "Tenga mucho cuidado..." "Cuidense muchisimo, hermana!" So we got to the car, aaaand THE ZONE LEADERS HAD JUST TEXTED US. So I nearly passed out because of WHO KNOWS WHAT, and at that exact moment they texted and said "Hey Sister Willis, we just wanted to remind you that you can be totally healed if you continue to believe in that blessing. The priesthood is real!"

So basically, I like the priesthood A LOT.

Also, Amanda Orrock lives in SF! Which I knew, but she emailed me and now we're in contact! I HOPE I GET TO MEET THE BAAABYYY!! Hahaha

Dad, we had an apartment inspection today and a car inspection on Thursday. Can I tell you how GOOD it felt to CLEAN?! Normally we just take the trash out of the car, and tidy up our area of the house on P-days. But I went in the trunk and organized ALL of our materials. One box of BoMs, one box of English materials, and one box of Spanish materials. It looks AWESOME. We both felt like there was a weight lifted off of us with an organized car. It is SO beautiful! :) Also, for the house inspection, my companion had a lot of clothes/luggage stuff to fix, so I cleaned the bathroom (which was surprisingly relieving!), and vacuumed our rooms and area. Then... I swept the kitchen, washed all of the dishes, wiped down every surface of the kitchen, DRIED AND PUT AWAY THE DISHES, and vacuumed the downstairs (which isn't ours). I literally thought of you the whole time. I was IN HEAVEN. Clean house, clean car... EVERYTHING IS CLEAN. I miss cleaning our house. I love it when things are clean. I think I'm developing your cleaning-Nazi tendencies, AND IT MAKES ME HAPPY :) :) :) :) I miss you and your clean-Nazi tendencies :)

So now that I've written probably the longest email on record of ever... I'm going to go shopping. JUST KIDDING. I'm broke. But it's ok, the month is almost half over :) Haha I'll send y'all a few pictures later today.

I LOVE YOU ALL A LOT. Like, a lot a lot.

Squiggles and snuggles,

Hermana Willis

AFTER THE TEMPLE!! I was so so so happy. I LOVE THE TEMPLE!!

One of our investigator's dogs, Harley.  I think my love for dogs is exploding a bit because I can't hold babies.  BUT that does not mean my love for babies is lessening.  You know what they say...  No, I don't.  BUT I DO KNOW I CAN'T WAIT TO HOLD BABIES :) Let me rephrase... I can't wait to HAVE babies.  Some things will never change :)

Remember that old lady dress I bought at the thrift store that wasn't quite big enough? I'm pretty sure ONE person, MAYBE will remember said dress... Yo, it's TOO BIG NOW. It's more of a summer dress, so I'm not really wearing it around, but hey... LOOK AT THAT. It fits!

hibgsdlgne

Sorry for the really stupid title. I'm running out of tiiiimee!!

STORY TIME! Last night, we went to this house where we'd been trying to contact a family for like this whole transfer. Aaaand we finally contacted them! They're a family of 4 aaaand they're AMAZING. We're going to start teaching them this week. AWESOME.

I got a juicer! I was expecting the white juicer from Courtney, but I GOT THE BLAAACK ONE!! And we went running this morning, AND I made juice. HOLLA!! :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY INDIA!! I can't believe I forgot to saaayyy that in my last email! x(

Also, we've been teaching my companion's brothers over skype, and it's the coolest thing of my life.

I'm way short on time, so let me explain my week through photo.

New Years Eve in the mission office, right before they closed. I LOVE THESE PEOPLE. Hahaha

I SAW TREVOR RIGGS! He served in our ward for 3 weeks, in Palatka for a minute, and in NORMANDY for a long time<--- He knows grandmother and granddaddy :) So We went to a baptism, and we were both like "OH MY GOSH, DO YOU REMEMBER ME?!" So naturally, we took a picture. SO COOL.

These are the best sister missionaries I have ever known in MY LIFE. I love them a whole dang lot!! :) Pacific Islander, Mexican, Dominican, AND WHITE GIRL. I love them :)

JUICER!

The juicer got so excited, it peed apple juice :(

JUUIIIICCCEEEE!!! I feel like myself today! :)

Happy new year!!

YOOOOOO!

So guess what. I had a major breakdown (Courtney, if while you read that you saluted while saying "Major Breakdown" I will give you a kiss RIGHT on your forehead when I get home<----HIMYM) because I stink at everything. We went to a lesson and we were going to teach Plan of Salvation. I was going to start the lesson, so basically all I said was "Antes de esta vida, viviamos como espiritus con nuestro Padre Celestial..." Then I repeated myself, and paused... then said "Hermana, necesito ayuda..." My mind stopped working aaand I couldn't do anything. So I let my companion and the fellowshipper teach the rest of the lesson while I nodded my head and smiled while inwardly beating the snot out of myself for straight up FAILING. So after that I felt like the worst kind of pond scum for about two days. I don't remember what happened, but something I read or heard turned me right around and I've been pretty much better.

So can I tell you something? Remember how I said I'm not good at anything in the first paragraph? Weeeelllll ----> My companion thinks I'm the coolest person in the world. Even when I don't feel like dirt, she makes me feel better anyway! She told me I look like I own New York (that's one of my favorites), that I AM Tina Fey like... every day (as in we have the same identity), that I'm probably the most beautiful person on the planet, that I could run for president (and I would win because I'm Tina Fey and I have glasses), that if I made my own church she would probably join my church, aaaaand basically every day I feel so GOOD about myself! So I don't know if I'm going to be super confident by the end of this transfer, oooorrrr prideful. Hopefully NOT the second!!

There are a lot of baptisms coming up! We've got 3 kids we're teaching (all separate families, not together) and the one who I failed in teaching the PoS to, who are all praying about dates for baptism. Woot woot! THAT'S 4 PEOPLE. I could just die of happy. I'm still adjusting to the area and learning to love it. I miss Eagle Mountain EVERYDAY still, buuut I'm not letting it occupy my brain all the time.

Being out on a mission, I've realized how much I LOVE service. Like the nitty gritty stuff and the really sincere life changingly personal stuff. I always knew I did, but I just want to serve everyone EVERYWHERE right now. Aaaand in my next life (post mission life) I really want to save a lot of money so I can go on a trip with Operation Smile somewhere (preferably Jordan<---middle east). Because... I WANT TO SAVE THE WORLD SO BAD... I just want to own my own non-profit so I can help everyone everywhere. So I'm going to have to be rich so I can do this.

Also, I know I requested a Bad Duck hoodie for my birthday but I changed my mind. If you want to send me one still, I won't complain! I want to represent Harkers Island everywhere I go! But if you want to choose between one or the other, choose this upcoming one! So here it is---> Will my family please pitch in and donate to Operation Smile? Because I feel like my heart belongs to that organization. I don't know if I ever told anyone, but one year around Christmas time I was debating paying my phone bill or donating to OS. I chose my phone bill, and it's kind of haunted me for a long time. Soooo, please save a child's smile and future for me while I'm out here saving souls. It would mean a lot for my little ice cold Grinchy heart :}

YO! I AM GOING CRAZY!! So go listen to The Piano Guys' song Cello Song and tell me what the real name of the song it. Because I'm going to lose my brain. Also, I miss William Joseph SO MUCH. And Jon Schmidt. I just want to listen the heck out of some instrumental music, sooooo yeah. Will someone send me copies of that goodness?

Hey dad... PROUD DAD MOMENT! I miss having clean things SO BAD! I cleaned the heck out of our apartment, our fridge, the kitchen, and I just felt SO GOOD. I feel less stressed when things are clean. I'm finally getting around to unpacking, and I'm buying hangers today too, and seeing all of my clothes folded in drawers was just SO RELIEVING. I miss having the option of being clean (even if I didn't choose it back home... Remember my clothes in a pile by my bed? Yeah, never happening again.) Now I have to wait for once a week to clean... Bah!

Also, I don't have a picture, but our ward mission leader got me a watch! Well, he got one for all of us Spanish sisters in Spanish Fork, but I love mine! Did you know that I'm becoming obsessed with watches? Because I can't stop loving them. Except for the ones with a plastic band... I can't stand those. Leather or metal... Otherwise I'm not a fan. So if anyone wants to get me a watch for my birthday... make sure it has a humongous face, because the bigger the face of the watch, the more I love it. Just saying... Dang, I sound so high maintenance! Make me stop!! x( But he bought me a watch! I love it so much. I think I told him thank you 11 million times. Seriously, it's beautiful.

OH YEAH! And did you know there's a Hindu temple in Salem where they do yoga classes? Because if I wasn't a missionary, I would attend the heck out of those! Also, I feel like I'm getting MEGA fat, so Hna Morla and I are going to start running <---IN THE COLD! So yes. I am excited :)

Anyhow, I love you all a lot a lot! SO MUCH! Aaaaand I loved seeing all of your faces :)

Hermana Willis

Welcome to Utah, where there's a Mormon Doctrine section in the public library... xD

This... is homemade fried chicken, mac&cheese, and hash browns. Can somebody pinch me? All I want is Brunswick stew, but this will have to satisfy my southern cravings.