Miracles I Tell Ya, Miracles.

I am really trying to notice the miracles that occur every single day. In Gospel Principles class on Sunday, Sister Carabello-the teacher who is truly awesome- talked about miracles. She describes everything in that class very simply so that the recent converts and investigators can understand. She said simply, a miracle can be anything, at any time, and in any place that makes you feel happy, content, or motivated to do something good. Our miracles are everywhere! For example, it is a miracle that I wake up at 6:30 and can get through a day without a nap. Haha! But along those same lines...

 Most of you who know me know that I am... well... A tad high maintenance. I will have you know that it is a MIRACLE that I am changing my ways, little by little. In fact, I even cut my own bangs last night. With just regular old scissors. I don't even want to know what Shep would have to stay about that! I am starting to accept the fact that I don't have to look great everyday. Danget. And it's a miracle if I do. Trust me.

 Well... how about some updates? I am realizing that my e-mails are going to be mostly about the people I am teaching (maybe thats an obvious statement...) because I love their stories. I love what I am learning from their stories and I love watching them lean on Christ for support in their hardships. Miracles, I tell ya, Miracles.

 I want to talk about Janet and Louise Woods again. We visited them on Saturday and it was a very humbling experience.They both have this disease that Janet (The 50 year old daughter.. Louise is pretty deaf and so she just chimes in every once in a while and says "I'm so glad you lovely ladies come visit us..." haha) explained as a cross between Polio and MS. The muscles in their hands and feet go first, and slowly their bones and muscles will pretty much disentegrate. Louise is in really bad shape, she has no muscle in her hands and has had to have several surgeries on her feet to remove the bone splinters from the bones breaking in her feet. She can't really walk anymore and Janet is starting to lose muscle more and more also. Janet told us " I pray

every night that I will be able to take care of my Mom and Lucky (the dog... I know... but I had a change of heart about the obsession with the dog after this conversation). All I ask is that I will be healthy long enough to see my Mom go." Wow, right? Can you imagine spending most of your life taking care of someone else? She has to pretty much do everything for her Mom. She's never been married, never had kids... Her life has been watching her Mom basically crumble, and making sure she herself doesn't crumble at the same pace so she can take care of her. I left that house that night thinking "And I complain about a few pounds I want to lose..." Sister Browning and I both were so humbled and were pretty quiet for a while after leaving there.

And THEN the same night we went to dinner with Hermana Lara. She fed us a genuine Nicaraguan meal... Pretty different if you ask me. Fried Bananas?! Weird. Kinda good, But weird. Anyways... So Hermana Lara was talking to us just like normal and then all of a sudden started talking about tithing. She made a choice to not pay tithing so she could help her family in Nicaragua because they basically have nothing. Now she is wanting to do her Family's temple work and can't go to the temple. They way she spoke about not being able to go to the temple almost brought me to tears! And here she was feeding us dinner that she probably used all of her money to feed us with.

Once again, quite humbling. How many things have I taken for granted in my life? (Mom- Don't answer that) Needless to say, I am really having my eyes opened.

  Sydney has a baptismal date! He is so awesome. It's so amazing to watch him learn more and more and realize his worth. He has nothing pretty much and soon he will have everything he needs! How cool is that. Sometimes he doesn't wear his teeth to our lessons though, and I'm not gonna lie... It's scary.

A recent convert, I think I've told you about her, named Zekaiah had the coolest thing happen. Right after she was baptised she finds out she has a brain tumor. Of course, right? "Cast ye not away therefore your confidence" at it's finest. She was really struggling to go to doctors appts and

take care of her 2 boys and work also... Just hard times. And then a few days ago she went to the Doctor to find out that her tumor is GONE! Miraculously! When the Dr. told her it was gone he said "I have no idea how this happened" to which she replied "I Do! The people at my church prayed for me!" Talk about some serious faith.

Some pretty cool things that happened this week:

 -David Archuleta came into the VC. One of the Sisters about fainted. Haha.  Did I want to sing with him? Yes. Did I have to remind myself that I am on a mission to serve the Lord and not to show off? Yes. Did I try to sing with him? Nope.

 -One of our potential (cross your fingers!) was the bass for "The Drifters". Cool right? We sing together sometimes. He is the owner basically of the Sober Living where we teach Sydney and where stewart lives. Have I talked about Stewart?He is such a stuff. He has been in prison for 15 years of his life. He's 35. He has seen some pretty crazy things and now is this awesome missionary. He can't get baptized just yet because he is still on parole... but he will be baptized next June along with probably 5 people that he lives at Sober Living with. He is so rad. Oh and his Sponsor is Robert Downey Jr.

No Big Deal.

Well... I think that's all I have for now. Keep the letters coming! I loooooooooove them! It is so great to know I have so many people that care about me. Thank you thank you.

The church is true.  SO true.  I know that with everything that I am.

`Sista Brink

Am I REALLY doing this??

Well. It's been another great week here in Los Angeles! I am really having such a great time. This week was pretty crazy. A lot of miracles, a lot of weird things too....

So remember Jay that I told you about? Well, we had this amazing lesson with her on Tuesday. The Spirit was so strong and at the end we asked her if she would committ to be baptized the first weekend in December. She said yes! So we will just keep teaching her and preparing her for her baptism. It's pretty cool to think that we almost didn't talk to her, and now, she is so close to receiving the most important thing she will ever receive in this life. The Lord really has prepared his people for us! She is such a humble person who was just seeking for answers. When she prayed at the end of the lesson, the spirit was so strong and she asked specifically to know if this was the path the Lord wanted her to take. When she was done, we asked her how she felt and she said "I think my Spirit isn't done yet." So cool.

People are asking about Daniel. Daniel is actually being taught by the Elders now because he is going to the singles ward and we don't cover that ward. We see him at the Sober Living from time to time because we are teaching a guy named Sydney there. He seems to be doing well and is still progressing toward his baptism... He needs to read the Book of Mormon though! That is SO key. All of our conversions have to come from the Book of Mormon. Sydney is a 53 year old man also living at the Sober Living house. It's amazing how much he knows about the Old and New Testament, but

also pretty sad how messed up his brain is from all the booze and drugs. He has such great questions though and he seems to really want to learn more.

A really sad thing happened this week. We were teaching a guy named Skylar who lives at the Manor (where all of the recovering addicts live... there are A LOT of these facilities in CA) and he was pretty into what we were teaching him. We needed to give him to the Elders too because he was 22 and needed to go to the singles ward. So us 4 missionaries taught him together on Tuesday so he would get to know them. The Elders went to teach him on Thursday, and they called us and told us some crazy news. Skylar had overdosed the night before and died during the night. It was pretty crazy news. He was so close to having everything he needed to be happy in this life, and then one night of relapse and he is gone. He is in good hands now.

We got to do a Temple Session this week! Needless to say, AMAZING! Man, the temple is just a swell place.

There are other miracles, but that's all for now : )

I really do love being a missionary. Sometimes I find myself thinking "Really?! Am I REALLY doing this? I seriously have to follow these rules for the next 16 months?!" and then a miracle happens and I am totally pumped. I do miss my family and friends of course, but when I get letters and 10 mormon ad posters from my Mom, I realize that I can do this. Thank you so much for all of your support!

Love,

Sista Brink

p.s. Just so we are clear, I'm really not supposed to get e-mails from anyone but family. So if you have e-mailed me and I haven't written back via e-mail, its because I am not allowed to. But I will write back via snail mail! So just write me real letters from now on if you are not family :)