Sister Stephani Rodriguez: Pioneers for a day

The best part about being in a small branch is you can have church wherever! We had church this week at Leta Card's house. She's a member that we visit every Tuesday, she's super sick so she can't ever make it to church but she is the sweetest! I just love her so much. We decided to bring church to her this week! We only had sacrament meeting with testimonies since it was Fast Sunday. We all brought our own chairs and had the meeting outside. Some members brought instruments (cello, banjo, guitar) and we sang the hymns that way. A few people mentioned how they felt like pioneers, I was thinking the same thing! It was really cool to see how 30 people could be so close like a family. Everyone in the branch cares so much about everyone, I love it. I'm so grateful for the pioneers and it was soooo cool to be able to have that experience that we could feel a different connection to them.

Also today I'm emailing super late because we went to the Adirondack Mountains!! (Well, it's New York, so they're more like large hills - Utah mountains are WAY better!!) but the Adirondacks were wayyyy cool! I have tons of pictures i'm going to send. We went with the Lees (the office couple) and a few other sisters around us. Then we went and had lunch at the Lees lake house! It was awesome! New York is sooo beautiful!

I really can't remember too much about this week but it was a good one!

This week while we were tracting, we had some rough experiences. People can be so rude! But after dealing with some difficult people, this lady let us in and she was like "oh come in!!! It's so nice to see the girls! i'm so used to the boys!" She's not an investigator, she was just this super nice lady who let us come in and sit down for a minute and be people. She said the Elders used to come over when they needed to rest and relax for a minute so we were welcome to do that anytime. That was such a tender mercy! To me it was like God saying "I"m sorry you had to deal with those rude people, but here's Tracy, she'll let you sit and calm down for a minute."

Transfer calls came last night and I am staying in Hamilton with Sister Loveland!! YAY!! I love hamilton!!! I really am so excited that i get to be apart of this work. It has absolutely been the hardest thing i've ever done but so rewarding as well. This week was kind of a struggle, but I've learned so much about being selfless. Being upstate NY, people were raised so different than I was. I've learned so much about charity and I've realized so much about seeing people the way that Christ sees them. And can I just say how much I LOVE THE BOOK OF MORMON?!?!!! I've had a lot of struggles, but the BOM is such a great reminder of why I'm doing this work and what I'm doing. We truly are so lucky to have the Book of Mormon. I hope you all have a great week! :)

Funny Stories:
Brother Rains: "I have socks older than you!"

Sister Rains: "...you probably shouldn't admit that"

While tracting this lady looked at us and was like "No. You are a CULT and i am NOT interested." Hahahah Okay then!!

I can't really remember what else but yeah, those'll do for this week :)

PICTURES

1. Big Macs and Facebook lessons