Like a Celebrity

Hello world!

So first of all, I felt much better this week than I've felt in a long time. So I just wanted to thank everyone who has been so kind and wonderful. And thanks to those who have been praying for me and my companion, and have sent packages or letters, or a note. Y'all are so wonderful. I am so blessed.

Well folks, I will have officially been in Valdosta for 7 months this week. How crazy is that?? Some days, it feels like I am a brand new missionary, and other days, it feels as if this is all I have ever known. And it has been absolutely wonderful. We have one more week of the transfer left, so on Saturday I will get the news if I'm being transferred or not. As of now, there is only one other sister I know of that has been in an area as long as I have, so if I were to stay another one, that would be pretty unheard of. But who knows?! The Lord is in control!

We've experienced some wonderful things this week:

-E has a baptismal date! WHOOO HOOO! Man, I love that family so much. When the kids get back from their Dad's in August, she wants them all to to have an overview of the lessons, and then they're all going to be baptized together on September 6th! SO MUCH JOY. She is just so wonderful.

-One of the days this week, we all fasted as a zone to have people put into our path that were searching for the gospel. And boy, did we experience some miracles that day. All of our appointments ended up no-showing us, so we were walking around, street contacting. And we saw a woman sitting on her porch, so we went over to talk to her. Turns out, she and her husband had studied with missionaries a few years ago and had loved it, but had to move and lost contact with them. She said that they even went back to their old house a few times to see if they could catch the missionaries and tell them they had moved. But we had a wonderful lesson with her on her porch. She's already read half of the Book of Mormon, absolutely loves it, her husband is totally on board as well, and she is really excited for us to come back and teach them.

-Okay, so a lot of the areas where we go to teach are in what may be lovingly referred to as "the ghetto". And I love these people more than anything. Give me a sketchy ghetto street over a super rich, nice neighborhood ANY day. The people are way nicer. Sorry, it's just the truth. Anyway, we were walking down a street this week, and came across a group of kids outside that LOVE us. They asked so many questions, wanted us to teach them everything we new, and were so excited when we gave them pass-along cards. They even asked us to sign them. I felt like a celebrity haha. They asked us to come back the next day, and we arrived, they all gathered around us on the ground for their "church lesson". Any time anyone would get noisy or talk out of turn, a few of them would turn to the disruptive child and say things like, "Shhhh! Y'all need to be quiet! We're in church!" and "No talking! I can't hear!" Super cute.

I love you all. Thanks for being wonderful. Give someone a hug today. You probably both need it. Everybody loves hugs.

Love,
Sister Szilagyi