Sister Potatohead: "I could spend eternity with him! He's not my first cousin..."

Quote attributed to my companion, Sister Wooten. She's my favorite. I love that kid.

I didn't email yesterday because we had a zone conference/mission tour thing in which a member from the quorum of the seventy came and talked to us.

This past week was kinda momentous. I'm sending this email to several people because I have a ton of thoughts about that..so yeah.

I've spent the last year of my life as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. And I'll be honest with you, it's been the hardest year of my life. I've never cried so much (ha! see? i'm not a robot!!!), felt so low, been through so much heartache, yet I've never felt so much happiness, I've never felt so loved, and I've never felt like I've been doing something so incredibly worthwhile in my entire life. This has literally been the best year of my life. Not only that, it's been the best year for my life. I'm glad I've got six more to be able to give everything I have and work as hard as I can. I honestly can't believe it's gone this fast.

I'll be honest again, I really didn't like being a missionary until about 5 or so months ago. About that time, a wise friend counseled me to just forget about myself. I did just that, and I've never been happier. I made the decision to just work, and I completely forgot about myself and I forgot about the whole decision until like 4 weeks after that. I still make mistakes, I still make a lot of mistakes. I make mistakes like, about 1000 times a day. But I'm getting there. I'm working on it. And I have the time to work on my weakness by forgetting about myself. And that's a miracle.

I absolutely love being a missionary. I love the gospel. I love my life. I feel so sorry for everyone who doesn't have my life, because my life is AWESOME. My mission has completely changed my life. This year has been the absolute best year ever. I'm so tired, all the time. I'm so flipping tired. But I'm so happy! It's so weird. I'm so stupid happy all the time.

Anyway. Those are my thoughts on being out a year.

So here's the stuff from the week.

So......we picked up a cat on Saturday night. Hahahaha. After dinner on Saturday, we saw a kitten by a fence and I called to it..and she came to me. Wooten told me to pick it up, so I did..and we took it with us. We drove off. We fled the scene of the crime. We kept her with us for a few hours and then took her back. See, it's against the rules to keep pets, but we didn't keep her...so..yeah. That works. She was so adorable though. I miss that kitty.

To celebrate my year mark, my comp and I decided to do something incredibly stupid. We went to Pizza Hut (mistake #1) and ordered this pizza with basically pigs in a blanket as a crust (mistake #2). And then we ate a slice (mistake #3-7). I highly recommend NEVER doing that. EVER. EVER. Don't ever do that. We had fun though....so that's what counts.

I can't remember too much..it's been a long week and I'm still pretty tired. But we had fun.

Love you! ALSO HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MOM AND DAD!