Sister Haley Knight: Spring Allergies and Abuelita

Hola! Les extraños! Esta semana estuvo loco pero muy bien!

My Spanish is getting a lot better since I've come to this area! I am so grateful! I love the Spanish language and I hope to be fluent someday! West Nash is still a blast! We didn't have the car last week so we had a lot of fun adventures! We used our bus passes as much as possible and I think I finally have the whole bus thing down now! I am such a fan of public transportation! Except when the bus smells REALLY bad! We made so many new friends on the bus and at the bus stops. A lot of the drivers know us now and are so sweet! One of the drivers saw us running to get to the bus in time and he sat and stopped traffic for a minute or toe until we got to him- so grateful! We've definitely had a lot of fun workouts while running to catch the bus.

One night we ran for like 10 minutes straight to make it in time and I thought I was going to die! I have definitely suffered physically from having a full time car in my other areas but this area is going to whip my tail back into shape!

We have had a wonderful week with our investigators Sergio and Adriana. They were nervous to meet with us at first because they LOVED the Elders but now they love us too! They have two little girls who have stolen our hearts! Itahy is 9 and Melody is 2 and she acts like it! We have visited with Adriana a lot and had fun helping her clean one day and then doing our nails! Another night we watched "Good Things to Come in Mormon" messages and ate cookies with our Abuelita (little grandma) that Adriana made for us! She came to our Relief Society birthday event and we were so grateful she was there. We had the RS leaders get up and testify of the blessing it is to be a part of the largest woman's organization in the world and what a blessing it is to our families.

The spirit was so strong the entire meeting and Adriana was crying through half of it. We are having a hard time helping Sergio see the importance of the gospel to his family right now but Adriana and Itahy are aware of the spirit and every time were are there we know they can feel it. Keep Sergio in your prayers. He has an addiction battling right now. We love them and we know they'll be a forever family with time.

Our district here is pretty awesome. We have really awesome missionaries in our area which is a huge blessing!

My good friend Sergio from my last area in Hopkinsville got baptized on Saturday! I desperately tried to find a ride to it but had no luck. I was so excited for him but I had a pretty rough time with the fact that I couldn't be there. I had a few breakdowns Saturday but prayer really helped me get through it. As I was crying in the library bathroom, I told Heavenly Father that there better be a reason why I didn't make it to Hoptown that day! We were planning on trying to make some new friends in the thrift stores so I told Him that we better meet someone amazing if I wasn't going to be with Sergio! I am such a brat! But Heavenly Father still loves me and after moping around in a few thrift stores we met the most amazing woman. Her name is Maribela and the Elders had met with her before but didn't keep a record of her! She was so so sweet and invited us to come and see her on Wednesday. We both have such a good feeling about her and I can't wait to see her again!

I really love our members here. They are all such incredibly strong converts in the church.

They are so full of love. One thing I love about Spanish Wards is that they always dress to the nines on Sunday. Such amazing outfits and such incredible heels!! I love it! The more I learn about the Hispanic culture the more I feel like I fit right in :)

For the first time in my life I have really bad spring allergies and they are killing me! I am sneezing every other second and can barely breath! But it's so pretty so it's worth it!

Okay, so before my mission I always knew there were people waiting for me, and that I was waiting for them and I met one of them! It's Alisa, the less active I mentioned last week. Alisa is so dear to my heart. We had two incredible visits with her with all three of us in tears.

Hermana Schmit and I both feel and believe that we were placed in this area together for Alisa. Alisa is one of the reasons I was meant to serve a mission. Hermana Schmit and I both were inactive for a large part of our adult lives and we both have so much compassion and understanding for Alisa. She has been through SO much in her life and she told us that every time she thinks about where she needs to be in life or what is wrong, she feels something telling her "You need to go back to your church." She knows that she's not where she's mean to be In life. It is so incredible to be able to share my own personal testimony of the change that our Savior can bring into our lives if we let Him. It is amazing that I can also share how hard it is to come back to church but that it is worth it. Nothing is worth more than the peace that we have as we come back to the food. We watched Jeffrey R Hollands talk titled Laboring in the Vineyard about those who came in the fifth hour and I have never felt the spirit so strongly in my mission. That is the testimony that I want to share this week. Our Savior is not concerned about the time that we come back- He is more concerned that we just come to Him. We can never be too far gone. As Elder Holland says, "...however late you think you are, however many chances you think you have missed, however many mistakes you feel you have made or talents you think you don't have, or however far from home and family and God you feel you have traveled, I testify that you have not traveled beyond the reach of divine love. It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ's Atonement shines." I am living proof of that. I testify that Christ can pull us out of the deepest holes and the most sinking waters. He pulls us out and lifts us up to places we never could have imagined. I never in my wildest dreams ever thought I would be serving a mission or that I would ever be found worthy to serve after the life I had lived.

Because of my Savior I am here. My mission is the greatest blessing I have ever experienced in this mortal life. It has changed me forever. It has helped me to see what my true potential is as a daughter of God.

I know that we are all children of a Father in Heaven. We have divine worth. Nothing we do can ever change that. Nothing we do will ever change the love that God has for us. Nothing we do will ever be too much for our Savior to take from us. We will always be loved.

Hermana Knight