February 20, 2012 One YEAR. Yikes!

Holy MOLY! I had my ONE YEAR mark this last week. How did that happen? I have NO IDEA. haha Anyway, it's hard to believe that I've been on my mission for more than a year now. I still have such a LONG WAY TO GO. Personally, I mean. It's kinda overwhelming. But I am grateful to know that I can keep changing and growing for the rest of my life as I continue to love and serve and share the gospel with others! PHEW!!! My mission doesn't REALLY end after my mission. Good thing! Because I LOVE my mission. So now I just have to learn to love my life's mission... once I figure out what that might be... haha. But I don't have to think about that for another 7 months! ;)

Well it was a pretty busy week, and yet I feel like we got nothing done. I hate it when that happens. But I just have to remember that not all missionary work is visible when we report numbers at the end of the week. And actually, MOST missionary work is not visible in numbers. But we had lots of meetings, lots of planning, lots of tracking down people who weren't there. I'm trying to pace myself and still allow my body to recover, but there is SO MUCH WORK to do, and it's both overwhelming me, and pushing me to just work even when I don't feel great. haha Just don't tell Sister Martin that. ;) But this is my SIXTH transfer here in Sylmar. And for those who don't know what that means, it means I've been here since JULY. That's 8 months now. And so I'll probably be leaving at the end of this transfer, and knowing that is just pushing me to work as hard as I can to leave it on an upswing. Anyway, for not having been able to work a ton the last couple months, our area has definitely suffered... and I take FULL responsibility for that. But I don't want to leave it how it is right now. My goal has always been to leave each of my areas better than when I found it. So we have A LOT of work to do, and not very much time to do it. We are already halfway through the transfer! Anyway, this stress is all self-inflicted, but very much real for me right now. So we just got pray hard, and work even harder. :)

As for Hna. White and I, we are great. We laugh ALL THE TIME. And that DEFINITELY helps everything! I'm SO grateful to have a companion who is so patient and loving with me, who is a rock-star Spanish speaker, and a great gospel teacher. I love her a lot! We never thought we'd be able to be companions, because we're both so old in the mission now, and that normally doesn't happen. So we are both just cherishing this time together. 

We do have a problem though. Cockroaches. SICK. We've always had them in this apartment, no matter how clean we keep it. But  it hasn't been too bad. But as it's been getting colder here, they've been growing in both size and number. We bombed it the day of my surgery, thinking that would help. It's made it worse. So we're going to bomb it again on Wednesday when we have Zone Conference... this is REALLY DUMB, considering all of the other things I SHOULD be praying for, like PROGRESSING INVESTIGATORS, but this morning I reached my limit. So I'm asking for those of you who will remember me in your prayers anyway, to just add in an extra note about getting rid of the cockroaches in our apartment. *Shudder* haha Thanks! :)

Well, that's all I have time for. I love you all! Thanks for all your love and support! Have a great week! And Happy President's Day!

Love,

Hermana Blackburn