BLESSED

This week we were so blessed.

I love life.

We had training and were blessed by a visit by Elder Kearon of the Seventy, and boy, that was just fantastic. We cleaned our building here in Bratislava from ceiling to floor preparing for him to come. We prepared spiritually and physically, and preparation really pays off! Really, what you put into something is what you are able to get out of it. The saying is one hundred percent truth. We were excited to participate and excited to learn. There are so many things from his training that we are applying! I love that he talked to us so much about how we start our day. How we get up, how we wake up, how we exercise. Not going to lie, I decided I should probably stop only eating chocolate pillow cereal for breakfast. As well, we are working on our teaching skills and our listening skills. 

a picture sister russell took of me during weekly planning. 

Which is fun.

It is June!!! It is summer! The tourists are everywhere! The sun is out and I am pink! We have talked to so many people from so many different cultures. We taught the coolest man from Romania on the Dunaj and he was so great. It is always great to hear from people who have seen missionaries in another country. He was sooooo confused about why the elders in Romania wore white shirts and ties. He just kept repeating, No matter what they are doing! They always wear them! I do not know if they are students or businessmen or what but they are always wearing these suits without suit jackets! We cracked up a bit.

I also think I forgot to add a really cool story that happened last week. It just reminded me because this was also on the Dunaj. We got to teach a really cool older couple from Israel! They spoke Hebrew! We talked to them about our beliefs and seriously, they really are some of the Lords elect people. They were so special. Even though they were Jewish, they did not really believe in God, but the woman was a Bible teacher. In Jerusalem. In Hebrew!! I died. And she wrote out some Hebrew for us, so now we know some Hebrew. Yeah!

We were blessed to teach our American military mom this week. Mostly because she brought us real life brown sugar that actually packs!!!!! Wow!! We have missed that! I was baking cookies like there was no tomorrow! And those chocolate chip cookies are so good. They dont have chocolate chips either but we successfully chopped up some chocolate pretty similarly. She is always so cute, she just makes us the yummiest American food and lives in this nice apartment. And has wonderful questions.

Thanks to all the members in America who reached out to her and shared with her so many testimonies already! They make our job easier. I cannot believe how many people who are Americans actually really know the Mormons. I mean, in comparison to people here, who have never heard of us before. I forget, when we talk to people from larger countries, that we are actually a known religion in the world.

There are so many families everywhere! It is warm and all of a sudden there are children everywhere
we look! The Slovaks are so incredibly careful and conscious about the health of their children that in the winter, it seems we never see the children unless they are bundled very tightly into a huge stroller. And now, it is like little life exists! We have never taught so many families. We can feel the Lord blessing our lives every time we talk to them. They are really so wonderful. Families are so important to these people, and we love it!

Well, speaking of families, I was reading Elder Perry's talk this morning, and I just love him and his words. We will miss this man. I love the paragraph that says,

"My brothers and sisters, the restored gospel centers on marriage and family. It is also on marriage and family where we can unite most with other faiths. It is around marriage and family where we will find our greatest commonality with the rest of the world. It is around marriage and family that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has the greatest opportunity to be a light on the hill.

Let me close by bearing witness (and my nine decades on this earth fully qualify me to say this) that the older I get, the more I realize that family is the center of life and is the key to eternal happiness."

This is true! This life and the next are all about families! And I have never been more grateful for my own families and the examples in my life. Thank you everyone in the whole world who has a family.

Love,

Sestra Abbott

This is me and a giant firework because random 

fireworks went off  in our backyard this week.