Hermana Abby King: They let the bedbugs bite!

Wow! Hi everyone! It's now officially Christmas music time so everyone better listen to Mariah Carey for me hahah! I hope you all had the best week! And wow HALLOWEEN, I hope it was great!!!!

Alright I don't even know where to start with this week! So much happened! Here are some highlights:)

-well, we found THREE new friends this week and we feel so confident with ALL THREE! Guess who one of our new friends is? MIA'S DAD!!! We finally were able to start teaching Martín and wow is he awesome. We even got to teach a lesson with their WHOLE family this past week!!

-OKAY BIG NEWS LIKE DROP THE MIC BIG NEWS!!!! We got an email from our branch President and CHURCH OPENED UP!!!! We had our first in person meeting on Sunday!!!! I was so unbelievably STOKED!!!

-our buds Maximo and Rosalida were there 10 minutes early IN PERSON!!!! How cute?! They showed up and one of our sweet branch missionaries went up and helped them with everything! THE LARGO BRANCH IS AMAZING TO SAY THE LEAST. Rosalida and Maximo are doing super awesome, thank you for your prayers!!! They are appreciated!!!!

-we were able to take some family Halloween pictures for the James family!!! They were characters from Peter Pan and OH MY they are just adorable!!! You can tell in the picture the lengths we went to for the pictures hahaha!!

-also!! I had exchanges with cute Sister Leiseth and we just had a GRAND OL time:) we decorated some fun Halloween cupcakes and I don't think I've ever laughed harder. She is such an amazing missionary and I definitely felt like I learned more from her during the exchange than the other way around :) SO MUCH FUN.

-HALLOWEEN! we dressed up as triplets haha! I thought we were prettyyyyyy clever if I do say so myself haha!! We had the CRAZIEST day Saturday! Here's a little story time...on Saturday we also had a few social media meetings with our social media leadership missionaries! We spent a few hours in meetings and then afterwards, we went to our Branch Presidents house to help their family with a Halloween party!!! Awhile into being there we get a call....turns out that some of the social media elders came in contact/have bed bugs and so everyone in the WHOLE ZONE (because of all the meetings we had all together)had to be quarantined because then we all came in contact with some missionaries that came in contact with bed bugs...haha if that makes any sense! SO Saturday night we came home, changed and showered right away and started the big checklist of everything we were supposed to do! We then got a message that we were NOT allowed to leave our houses or use our cars until we hear an update! And because it was the weekend we couldn't get cleared...which meant we couldn't go to in person church yesterday! Ahh it was so sad!!! We spent the whole day inside and had church and meetings virtually! So grateful that we all already know how to do it all from our phones! We called a lot of people and we definitely made the most of it:) my comps are SO FUN so it was a grand ol time:) we are still in our apartment and we are only allowed the leave once today for Walmart! Never have we ever been so grateful for Walmart!!! Haha!!

WHAT A WILD WEEK RIGHT?? Thanks to the bed bugs, this is definitely a week to remember hahaha!!

WELL I am SUPER EXCITED to share something I found in my studies this week :)

"If we give our heart to God, if we love the Lord Jesus Christ, if we do the best we can to live the gospel, then tomorrow—and every other day—is ultimately going to be magnificent, even if we don’t always recognize it as such. Why? Because our Heavenly Father wants it to be! He wants to bless us. A rewarding, abundant, and eternal life is the very object of His merciful plan for His children! It is a plan predicated on the truth “that all things work together for good to them that love God.” So keep loving. Keep trying. Keep trusting. Keep believing. Keep growing. Heaven is cheering you on today, tomorrow, and forever."

-Elder Holland

Wow right? I LOVE THIS. I also definitely needed to hear this quote this week. All our Heavenly Father asks for is our effort, and hello(!!) each of us can do that:) I believe in each of us!! The point of this life we have on earth is to receive the blessings God has in store for us, right? Eternal families, eternal life, eternal HAPPINESS, growth--these are all blessing from our Heavenly Father. We are given blessings day to day, hour by hour and minute by minute. It's up to each of is to decide to see them :)

I haven't given a challenge in a few weeks but BOOM they're back :) My challenge to you is this: write in your journal EVERY NIGHT this week and state 4 little miracles, blessings, happy things, gifts that God has given you. I can promise you that when you sit down and REALLY, SINCERELY think about it, 4 will be the minimum of things you think of.

I love each of you and OH BOY so does our Heavenly Father!!!

Have the best week!!!!!

All my love:)

Hermana King!