I Am Having Problems...

...with computers these days! For some reason for the last two weeks
my emails decide to send before I am even done typing the
subject/title! Sorry about that! Hopefully this one will go better.
Last week I ran out of time to send a new one so I am sorry that all
you got was "I don"...that must have been pretty funny! Anyways,
things here are going GREAT! I am loving serving with Sister Neumayer!
We have become very close very fast. We have similar work ethics and
we want to finish our missions strong. I don't remember how much I
have told you about her so here is a little bit more in case you
wanted to know. She is from Orange County, CA (Tustin). She is an
amazing singer. She loves opera and we will often listen to it in the
car but its not in English so she has to translate it for me. She is
going to BYU Provo majoring in music performance and minoring in
German. She hopes to make her career mostly in German Opera. She is
amazing! For example, yesterday in Sacrament meeting for the Clark YSA
ward, the first speaker was Karinna Redline. Karinna was baptized a
few weeks before I got to the Clark ward last year. Karinna was giving
her farewell talk before she heads off to her mission in the
Philippines. She is going to be a fantastic. Anyways, she gave a 20
min talk on the Atonement and then the ward choir sang "Come Thou
Fount". After that happened, Bishop Stewart got up and he was the
closing speaker. The Spirit was already almost overwhelming and he
proceeded to talk about how much God loves us and how He wants to
forgive us when we do something wrong. It was dead silent the entire
time he was speaking and everyone was so in tune with the spirit. He
closed and since its the week of the 4th of July we sang America the
Beautiful. As we were singing I was thinking about the words and
listening to Sister Neumayer sing (as I sang quietly next to her). All
of a sudden I am overcome and I start to cry. Tears flowing and I have
to blow my nose and it was embarrassing. I handed her the hymn book
for the last verse and tried to compose myself. All I could think
about was how grateful I am to be in America. How grateful I am to
have the freedom of religion. How grateful I am that because of my
religion and my faith in God I was able to serve a mission. How
grateful I am for a loving God that blesses us and answers our
prayers, like mine to serve with Sister Neumayer. How grateful I am
for our talents, abilities, and personalities. I am so happy! I love
being a missionary and I am terrified to come home in 7 weeks. It is
so close! I don't know what I am going to do when I get home yet. I
want to see everyone and yet I will miss being in Washington. I will
miss these people! I will miss working 16 hour days where I am
completely exhausted in every way: mentally, physically, emotionally,
and spiritually! I will miss this time I have to totally focus on
improving my relationship with Heavenly Father and my Savior. Simply
put, this really has been the best 17 months of my life so far!
     I realize now that I got way off topic of telling you about
Sister Neumayer. We both go home Aug 20th. She came out to the mission
6 weeks/1 transfer after me. She makes me laugh so hard and the ward
can tell that we really love each other and love working together. We
are working hard! We had a few of our investigators decide that they
didn't want to keep meeting with the missionaries and that makes me so
sad. Sister Neumayer has only been here for 4 weeks before I got here
and she didn't have the chance to meet everyone that we are teaching
so they are not sure if they want these 2 girls coming over. This
makes me sad because if they really were prepared to hear the gospel
then it shouldn't matter which missionaries teach it to them. oh
well...we are on the look out for people who are seeking truth.
      So crazy thing about the past week/today. I am now and will end
my mission being officially a WASHINGTON VANCOUVER MISSIONARY! I am so
so so excited! I am so happy that I got to serve in 2 missions. And
even though President and Sister Greer are gone, which makes me VERY
sad, I am excited to meet and get to know President and Sister Taylor.
I have not met them yet but I will get to on Thursday. We are having a
specialized training with them and I can't wait! Another thing is,
today is my 17 month mark. Can you believe that I have been a
missionary for 17 whole months! I can't! It has gone by so fast and
even days that feel like they are going to go by slow, end up going by
fast. For example, we did exchanges on Saturday. I got to stay in the
area to work with Sister Penrod and Sister Neumayer got to go to
Sister Blanchard in the Van North Stake. (They don't have a car and
its a walking area and Sister Neumayer got a really bad sunburn)
Anyway, I thought that that day was going to go by really slow because
we only had 2 set appointments. One at 11 and dinner. :) We taught the
lesson at 11 which went amazing! Then we tried a ton of people and no
one was home or let us in until 4:30 (an hour before dinner) so we
visited with the less active sister then went to dinner with an
investigator family. We ended up doing service and teaching a short
lesson after dinner so by the time we got done there it was time to go
back to the church to trade back companions. It was such a fast day! I
couldn't believe it! That happens every single time now. Time is
moving so fast!
     Well I am running out of time now and I need to email President
Taylor. I hope to hear from you. Please do not think that just because
I am almost coming home that it means that you don't have to write me.
It should be the total opposite! And I would really really love to see
what Kyla looks like, and have some details like how big was she,
etc...you know the usual. All I know is the first and last name and a
date. I feel SO not included...
     So I love you all and I miss you!
~Sister Brox