ABILENE

Hola Familia!

How is everyone doing? Hope that yall had a great 4th of July and that you ate lots of BBQ. yumm. 

The 4th here is a lot different from what I'm used to, because no one knows how to do it right. Lots of them were blowing off fireworks during the day? like what the heck? haha that's not how you do it. We had a party in Salina with the Maupin family who are recent converts of about year! We had burgers and hot dogs... salads and lots of flies! they were taking over like crazy then add the humidity. It was great. (: 

We went and saw lots of members and walked around, but the town was seriously empty. So we kept working and we did find people to talk to- #success

While we were out and about we met this family! the dad was outside smoking and his two boys who are twins were blowing up fireworks and so we stopped to talk and we did for about 10 mins! The boys were asking what is a missionary and about church. How they knew that they should go to church every Sunday but they don't. Darold, the dad, said that us showing up at the moment was an answer to a prayer-apparently things have been pretty hard. So we have an appointment with him this Saturday! I'm really excited to get things rolling here in Abilene. There is this boy named Dakota who wants to get baptized but he cant until he's 18 due to guardian issues. But he is awesome, he loves coming to church and reading the Book of Mormon! He's already in Alma. (: 

Sunday was good, lots of awesome testimonies were shared. Salina is a great ward to be serving in. Everyone is awesome. After Relief Society one of our little sisters (she is a inactive who is starting to come back) and she came up to us after class and was like..  " So I was thinking about what I need to do to go on a mission." and we were like WHAT! OMG!- but don't worry I was composed. (: So we are pretty excited for her! They are a convert family and they are gonna be active again! (: 

 My birthday was peachy- the amazing Zone Leaders gave Chocolate Flan. and it was sooo good. they gave me man sizes and i ate the whole thing... #noregrets. 

But Its been a really good week! We have had people text us that they want to meet with us and so things are starting to happen! People are finally getting used to having sisters here in Abilene! "bout time!" :)

Well- thankyou for all the birthday wishes and cards! It really made my day that much better! (: I am grateful for awesome people like you in my life and having so much support constantly. For your spirituality-"To exercise faith is to trust that the Lord knows what Heis doing with you and that He can accomplish it for youreternal good even though you cannot understand howHe can possibly do it. We are like infants in ourunderstanding of eternal matters and their impact onus here in mortality. Yet at times we act as if we knew itall. When you pass through trials for His purposes, asyou trust Him, exercise faith in Him, He will help you.That support will generally come step by step, a portionat a time. While you are passing through each phase,the pain and difficulty that comes from being enlargedwill continue. If all matters were immediately resolvedat your first petition, you could not grow. Your Father inHeaven and His Beloved Son love you perfectly. Theywould not require you to experience a moment more ofdifficulty than is absolutely needed for your personalbenefit or for that of those you love.

The Church is still true and I still love being a missionary!! I love everyone so much and I'm super excited to keep building up God's Kingdom on the Earth!

Have a great  WEEK!!!

<3Sister Williams