"Denial-Panic-Excitement-& Denial, a Followed Prompting, Amazing Palmyra Trip, Realization in the Sacred Grove, & Sister Langford bids you a final missionary adieu!"

THE LAST MELON.

BLOG.

Ok. I've put off writing this email as long as my hour and a half of allotted email time will allow.

Deep breath.

OH MY GOODNESS. THIS IS MY LAST EMAIL AS A MISSIONARY. I'm going to be honest, it doesn't really seem real. I go through these phases...

the first is denial.

then panic.

then excitement.

then denial again.

then just really, really sappy.

So anyway, That will be an outline for how this email will also go. Let's start with some denial that this is never going to end.

This was a really good week of missionary work. We taught a lot of lessons, and we saw a lot of progression from our investigators. But I have one awesome story that I want to share in particular. So last week, Sister Mason and I were driving down the road. We were stopped at a red light when I looked out the window to see what was going down in Saratoga. Just then I noticed two women, walking down the street with a baby in a stroller. Instantly I thought, "We should talk to them." But then I thought these things, "ok, A: We are in a car on the other side of the road. How would we ever go about that? and  B:  It's sooo cold. I do not want to get out of this car. and then C:  We have somewhere to be. So when the light turned green, we kept driving down the street. We got to our destination, parked and I just knew that we needed to go back. ASAP. So without further discussion I turned the car around and parked down the street from where we saw the women walking. Then we got out of the car and started walking towards these women. Well we came face to face and I pulled out my best and most awkward OYM approach, "Hey! can we talk to you for a minute?" The older lady kind of dodged me by saying, "oh sorry we need to get the baby inside." But I wasn't going to give up that easy. Not after I had turned the car around to talk to them. So I said, "Oh. Well can we give you this card?" The older lady kept walking but the younger one stopped and we got to talk to her. We bore testimony of the importance of our message, and she said we could come back. Then she said, "I've been looking for something like this." Well, this week we have taught this lady 4 times. She has had so many amazing experiences and is totally progressing in the gospel! I am so grateful that I followed the prompting to go and talk to her. I'm excited to see what will happen with her.

Ok now some panic.

OH MY GOSH GUYS. I'm going home. Oh my goodness oh my goodness. (deep breaths)

Now some excitement!

HUUUURRRRRAAAAAY! (at this point you can imagine the part in Tangled where she keeps going back and forth on how she feels) 

Now lets talk about Palmyra.

Ok. That place is so so awesome. We started the day by getting to go to a session in the Palmyra temple. Then we went to the Book of Mormon printing press, ran up the face of the Hill Cumorah (while it was snowing), went to the Joseph Smith farm, then to the Sacred Grove, and finished with a tour of the Peter Whitmore farm. It was such a great day... although all day I just kept thinking,  "Why am I even here? I'm not going home." haha. Hello denial.

Let me tell you though. My absolute favorite part of the trip was getting to go to the sacred grove. When we got there, it was getting dark and it was snowing. Pretty different from when Joseph went out there to pray. But the spirit there was so incredible. I took some time to just sit down by myself and ponder and feel the spirit. Man it was powerful. As I pondered I had this realization:

When I left on my mission, and really throughout the course of my whole mission, I have thought, "What can I give to the Lord. What can I do for Him?" Which is great, but then that sometimes leads to the stress of thinking you didn't do enough for Him. As I sat, and pondered I realized that my mission wasn't about me giving to Heavenly Father, or anyone else (although that happened and it was amazing.) My mission was and is one of the greatest gifts that Heavenly Father could have ever given me. Of course, there have been ups and downs, but my mission has forever changed my life. I couldn't think of a greater gift from Him.

Well, I'm going to finish now... with SO MANY mixed emotions. My mission is the best thing that has EVER happened to me. I am just filled with so much gratitude for everything that it has been. Ahh, I wish I could explain it all in the blog post.

But I'll see you all soon.

XOXO,
Sister Langford