Phone Call Home: Monday, November 22, 2021

Sister Garcia and her smile :)

Whew...Mondays are EARLY and Mom looks ROUGH! But I wouldn't change a single thing

Sister Garcia was up and at them this morning when I woke up at 4:30am. She had already sent a Facebook message to me and we were able to visit all morning. She is happy and her smile is contagious. I imagine that all the people she is coming into regular contact with are living much happier lives because of her sweet spirit.

Sister Garcia has been killing cockroaches this week. Sister Da Mata does not want anything to do with them (I don't blame her one bit) and so Sister Garcia does the killing. :) She did say that one of them hung onto her shoe so she just let him go outside. I told her to kill them all and that the Lord would be grateful for her service if she chose to do so. Gives me the chills just thinking about it. 

Sister Garcia has not yet been to the mission home to receive her package to help with the bug bites situation but she says she has stopped using her Bath and Body Works lotion and instead purchased some baby lotion in the pink bottle and she is doing much better. She says she believes her lotion was just too sweet and they all wanted some of it. She also mentioned that her tan lines on her feet from her Chacos are coming along just fine. She showed me her feet and sure enough, the girl has got some tan lines. I asked her to upload a photo so we can watch as it progresses over the next 8 months so hopefully she will do that. 

Sister Garcia said yesterday at church was the Primary Program and it was the sweetest thing ever. She said the littles are just too cute and she loves the tender spirit they bring by singing the songs. She also mentioned that her next transfer is on December 8th. She also informed me that she has the following transfers left of her ENTIRE mission: 12-8, 1-19, 3-2, (oh and by the way she will have 99 days left on March 28), 4-3, 5-25, and then the last one that would take place on 7-5 but instead she will be heading home! Holy cow. That is literally only 4 more transfers after this one coming up and then she is done. The time is flying by! 

Sister Garcia and Sister Da Mata set a goal during this six week transfer to find 25 new friends to work with. The first week they found 5. The next? 8. Last week? 11. Yes, ELEVEN! They were all through social  media referrals and from what Sister Garcia can tell, they are all very interested in moving forward. I cannot even imagine. That is 23 in 3 weeks bringing their total to 29 friends they are currently working with in Carpina. She says they contact them every day and have had to divide their friends into two groups. Each group alternates days of lessons (T, TH, S would be group 1 and Wed, Fri, Sun would be group 2) so this is keeping these two missionaries busy! But she is so so glad and says  she would rather be super busy than doing nothing. 

Sister Garcia had interviews with her Mission President, President Nordfelt, this last week. She went second and she dreads that. :) I guess Sister Da Mata asked President Nordfelt if they could have one more transfer together and he politely just said no. That made both of these missionaries super sad. Sister Garcia said that President told her that he needed her to know that he knows how hard she is working and that he knows that she is putting all of her cards on the table every single day. He commended her for her language skills and wanted to let her know that baptism counts do not define success for a missionary. President Nordfelt let her know that there will be a day where she will see success in her efforts. This made her immediately feel like she will be the one to leave Carpina come transfer time. I a so grateful for Mission Presidents!!! They are proof positive that the Lord is working through them on behalf of my sweet girl. 

Sister Garcia said she has been feeling like a crappy older sister for Elder Garcia as he has been on his mission and struggled. She recognizes that he has to experience those trials and hard times but she wanted to see if President Nordfelt could give her any insight that maybe she could share with him. President Nordfelt asked what interests Elder Garcia has and when Sister Garcia said art he said something along these lines: When someone who likes to draw, artist or not, sits down to create an image they may not know exactly how the end product will turn out. There will be messy times where an eraser (the Atonement) needs to come into play, there will be some instances where you have to re-group your idea and perhaps start a spot over again (again, the Atonement), and there will be some times where the artist might not really know what it is that is playing out in front of them as they are creating this piece. Just like a mission...you don't know what the end result will look like from your time serving. There will definitely be times in the middle that are messy, where you need a new perspective to draw from, you may need to erase and start over, or you may just simply be unsure that that piece can be finished. But if you keep going, like an artist usually does, your end result will be something that you will be able to see and know that you created. (How freaking cool is her Mission President?!)

Sister Garcia said that the craziest part of the conversation was that she all of a sudden realized that President Nordfelt's analogy applied to her just as much as it would to Elder Garcia when she shared it with him. She said the Lord is the artist in our lives. The Savior and His Atonement are our erasers. The Lord knows what the end result will be but until we meet Him again we won't be able to see fully for ourselves what that end result looks like. I love that she was able to see herself and her time spent not just here on her mission but her entire life in this mortal state in this as she listened to President Nordfelt. This girl impresses me more and more as she connects Gospel Principles to her own life and her testimony that she has inside of her. I am beyond grateful to have the opportunity to learn from her each and every week and for the trust she has in me to share these things with me as well.

Sister Garcia and Sister Da Mata have a baptism extended and accepted for Sunday, December 5th. This gives me the chills just typing it. I would love nothing more than to have Sister Garcia have an opportunity to experience this in Carpina if indeed she is leaving on December 8th. We will keep all of these players in our prayers these next weeks. 

Mondays will be a favorite day of mine until we are all together again. I am afraid I will come to miss my Monday missionary call though. The spirit that resides during our calls and the light that exists within Sister Garcia (& Elder Garcia too) is something that I sure hope stays to some degree when they return home. Even though I start my day super early, it is 1000% worth it and I am so glad we have the chance to catch up and that I can see the eyes of Sister Garcia! I also learned that we get a bonus call this week for Thanksgiving! Yay...now to look forward to Thursday. :) 

I love you for forever and for always. More than you will ever truly be able to comprehend. To the moon and back,

Mom