A Beautiful Act of Faith

Happy Monday from Beaufort! Where it reached 90 degrees yesterday, and there is supposed to be a "cold front" coming where we're in the 70's. The weather's pretty rough out here guys. Feel free to send me some of your winter scarves.

This week was a bit of a rough one, but sometimes that happens. Onward and upward!
There were some wonderful moments and crazy moments, of course, so I wanted to give you some "snapshots" from my brain again:

-The elders calling us one night and asking if we had broken into their apartment. We were told them obviously not, and we were hurt that they would even assume so haha. But this is why they asked: Someone broke into their apartment and melted off one of Elder Duran's bike pedals. I'm serious. MELTED OFF. And that's it. Nothing stolen, nothing else vandalized. Just two giant burn holes with melted plastic in the carpet. How creepy/bizarre is that??

-Sitting on Sisters W's couch, shaking a spider off my arm and looking though her old missionary scrapbook. That little, 4'11'' woman served a mission in Atlanta, Georgia in 1953. Her sweet, strong testimony of the gospel and her conviction stayed with me long after we left. As did her joy for the gospel. And I won't forget how her eyes filled with tears as she told us how much she loved and missed her mission.

-Fixing up an old man's lawn because he can't do it himself anymore. And having it start to rain, then pour, on us... so we decided to have some fun at the end. Mud fight and puddle jumping.

-Sitting in the trailer of R and D. R: sincere and spiritually "in tune", showing us the jewelry he's making with old 22 shells and asking us questions about the apostasy from the pamphlet he read.

-Sitting around the kitchen table of the A family. In that little green trailer, Brother A translates the testimonies of the missionaries for his wife, who speaks Spanish. And although it's burning hot in there, all I feel is the warmth in my heart from the tangible spirit in that room, and how grateful I am to be serving a mission. Nothing that feels that good comes from anywhere else but God.

-Driving on base to have dinner at the N's house, and the marine at the gate stopping us and asking, "So where's my pamphlet? It's Sunday, so I figured I'd get one today. My work doesn't let me go to church on Sundays, so could I have one?" We had met him once before and he had asked us if we were the ones that handed out pamphlets. :)

And one last little tender moment/story:

We found out that an adorable recent convert in our ward (in her 60's), had recently gotten a new job and had to work on Sundays. We hadn't seen her in a couple weeks, and were excited to see her at the Relief Society activity on Tuesday. I asked her about her new job, and little tears came into her eyes. She said: "I did get a new job. But I have to work every Sunday. I asked for Sundays off, but they said no... So I turned in my resignation. God wouldn't want me to miss church." It was such a beautiful act of faith to me. She said that she knew something else would come along that would be even better. We were so proud of her, and my heart just swelled within me. So I gave her a big hug. One little hard decision that I'm sure she will look back on and be so grateful that she made.

This work is true. I love being a missionary.

Love, Sister Szilagyi