7.3.17 Happy 4th of July!

Hey everyone! Happy 4th of July! Our ward covers the Fort Belvoir military base as part of our sacrament meeting yesterday, we all stood and sang the National Anthem. It was powerful! What a blessing it is to live in such an amazing country. I am so grateful to get this opportunity to serve along side such amazing men and woman who have so bravely fought for our freedom. It's such an amazing place to serve. I am still learning a lot about the area and the people here but things are going pretty well. I think a favorite part is how we get to spend a lot of time with the other sisters. I love getting to see Sister Von Savoye. She is doing incredible! I am so proud of her. We went on a mini-exchange and had a lesson with Tony. I was so excited to see him. He has been working on getting to the temple and hints were kind of slowing down so I got to go visit him and see how I could help. Everything turned out really well and on Saturday we all went and celebrated his big day at the temple! The only time there was bad weather that day was when we were in the temple which was a huge blessing because it was the day of our car fast. Heavenly Father truly has a perfect timing with everything. If we would have gone to the temple any earlier, we would have been driving in a heavy rain storm. I also got to spend time this week with Hermana Abad. She is from Herman,Utah and she knows some of my friends. She is in the Spanish program so she taught me a couple of phrases. On exchanges, I am pretty sure I learn so much more from each of our amazing sisters then they learn from me. Hermana Abad is so great at listening to what people say. We were only companions for 24 hours but every time I didn't know what to say she would jump right in. She is incredible! Another sister I had the privilege of learning from is Sister Cottam. She is currently training a sister in a singles ward. As we began driving for our short exchange, the car started making a weird nose. We pulled into a neighborhood and immediately felt like maybe we weren't there to fix our car but to find someone ready for the gospel. Sure enough, as we pulled over, we saw this house and felt like we should talk to the people there. Now missionary work tends to be really awkward 99% of the time, so we were trying to figure our approach. Just as we were going to walk up to the door, a man walked out and asked us if we needed help with our car. We were able to talk with him and let him know that missionaries could talk with him more where he was moving. I think so many times I have to come to realize that just because someone might have been placed in our paths and is ready for at least a little portion of the gospel doesn't mean we will be the missionaries teaching them. We were able to plant the seed and let our little plant grow. In reality, none of these people are our investigators. They are the Lord's. He watches over them and knows exactly what they need. I am so grateful for these amazing learning experiences I have had this week. I know that this gospel is true and I am so grateful for it. I am so grateful for the temple. I know that it truly is the house of God where we can go to make further promises with Him. I hope you all have a great week! Love, Sister Goudy 1. Wash. D.C. Temple 2. JR. is in the front and Tony is next to me 3. Sister Cottam and I made a new friend 4. The amazing Hermana Abad