Hi family!!!!!! Oh I love that I have a family! I could NOT do one bit of this without all of you! This week I realized just how much I love each of you! I am still probably the happiest missionary in Europe, even though this week threw me under the bus a few times, I am learning to rely fully on my Savior and I am fine! I actually like the view from under the bus... haha.
Ok so this week we had ZONE CONFERENCE!!!!! My first one! It was SOOO great! We woke up around 5 and got ready as quickly as possible so we could catch the train to Ljubljana. Elders D. and P. stopped at the bakery and got us breakfast! It was SOOOO good because it was warm that early and I didn’t realize how hungry I was. I am so grateful for the Elders! The train ride this time was BEAUTIFUL (because I was awake this time!) Seriously people, I am obsessed with Slovenia. It is so cute! Ugh I was squealing the whole way and I think everyone is now fully aware of my personality hahahaha. It was so beautiful! And the city’s so cute! Anyways zone conference was great! I loved being spiritually uplifted because sometimes actually always missions are spiritually DRAINING!!!! So it was nice to have someone teaching us and to learn. One of the best parts was seeing my old companions!!!! I love them oh so very much! Sister Redding just cried hugging me and Sister Rhodes just giggled at how excited I was that early in the morning. haha. It was cool to see how much we have grown! It was very comforting to learn that neither of them can understand people very well yet, but we all speak awesome. It was great!
One of the best parts about zone conference was getting MAIL!!!!! So for those of you that don’t know, my mission president (who is amazing and I loved seeing him again) lives in a different country than I do. All mail goes to the mission office (just in case we get transferred or move apartments) and then we get it. So we only get mail when we see the president, which is normally once a month, but for me since I am new I get to see him twice this month! BLESSED!!! He is great! Anyways I have only been here 2 weeks and so I just went with Sister N. to get her package and turns out.... PEOPLE LOVE ME!!!!!!! I had 2 letters!!!! Ugh I was just dancing and so happy! Madi wrote me. Sister N. will agree that I just about cried reading her letter it was SOOOO good to see her handwriting and get a letter from her.... I also got a letter from the cutest aunt! Jill and family sent me a card and some stickers! I love them! It was so great! Anyway I was so happy and everyone who got packages shared their precious American food so it was all around just a joyful time.
This week did not turn out as planned! We had 8 lessons set up.... and 7 fell through. So this week was again turned over to the Lord and we walked and walked and hiked and contacted and tracted. But, it was OK! We prayed specifically for one new investigator and we didn’t get that, but we did end up with a ton of awesome conversations and I knew Heavenly Father wanted that to happen so it was great!! One family we met ended up talking to us for about 30 min and we had the best conversation! At the end the teenage daughter started giggling at Sister N. and I and told us how much she loves our accents! She said she could listen to us talk all day! It made my day! Sometimes we will say Zdravo to someone and they will reply I don’t speak English hahahaha… We definitely have not mastered the Slovene accent yet! The struggle is real!
I think my favorite part of this week happened in the backyard of one of our English class students! She lives on top of the mountain (well actually, it’s a hill, but after hiking it to her house it is now a mountain... pretty sure it is an Alp!) next to us. The hike up was BREATHTAKING!!!!! I tried taking so many photos but nothing could capture just how beautiful this place is! It was perfect! It was raining, so it was foggy, and I just loved it. Anyway, we did service for this friend of ours. We helped her in her garden! FINALLY!!!! Ugh since it has been spring I have missed home so much and just dying to help in someone’s garden! (Yes dad, I love it) It was such a great time! This woman lives in the cutest cottage and her home is beautiful! Her yard is a meadow! I am in love with Slovenia if you can’t tell! She was so sweet and made us lunch after we helped! It was probably the best food I have had so far! She made a sauerkraut soup with ham and beans in it? It was wonderful and we were cold from working in the rain! She also made Palačinke (crepes) which is always a delight. It was such a great day and I really enjoyed doing service. Plus the view was perfect, so that was great!
The weather here was psycho this week. It was HOT at the beginning of the week and I got a sweet tan on my feet (haha mission tan life), and the very next day.... it was pouring rain, not as bad as Texas looked from the photos, but still bad! But good news! My rain coat and umbrella work like a charm!!! Good job Mom! Bummer though.... I kind of totally spaced on packing waterproof shoes... and cobblestone streets tend to puddle.... haha it was an interesting few days…So THEN the next day we were in our winter coats! But good news, today is BEAUTIFUL!!!!! It’s not hot or cold and it is sunny and we are going to the lake soon!! So great! I am laughing that there is snow at home.... but not too hard because I really don’t want it to come here! Good luck saving the plants at home! I secretly wish I could help cover blossoms again haha!
Well... probably the biggest thing I learned this week was how much I LOVE my family! We started out the week with a goal to contact and tract more families. It was HARD!!!! For the first 3 days literally NO ONE listened to us. Literally didn’t even hand out a mormon.org card. But, in 3 Nephi 26:11 it says I will try the faith of my people! And we were tried! Finally one night after a long (but lots of fun) day of tracting, I was writing in my journal and I thought...why am I even trying to find families? How does the gospel bless families? And then.... I remembered MY family and how blessed we are! I LOVE MY FAMILY!!!!! I get so much support from them every single day! I know you all are praying for me because I can feel it! We had the opportunity to watch the Women’s Conference this week! And all it was about was family! Go watch it if you haven’t! It made me want to tear up! My heart ached thinking about my family a few times this week! Really missing you all! But, I know you are all proud of me and supporting me! I love you all and hope I am making you proud! Tearing up over here.... I really do love you all!
I am glad everything went well this week with everyone in Texas! The pictures from Kimmy’s baptism made my eyes water! I am so happy for her and proud of her! We have a baptism this week in Slovenia that I get to attend and I am so excited! I loved seeing you all together having fun and celebrating such an amazing moment! How cool!!!!
Ok this might have been not as much fun as other emails, but I promise it was a wonderful week and I loved every second of it. I am so happy! I have never been happier! I feel so close to my Savior here and I am loving every single thing about being in Slovenia and serving a mission. It is hard and I have never slept better... but I am so happy. I hope you all have a good week! I miss you and love you!
Sestra Higgins
Other notes:
I forgot to mention the people I am around!
The branch is WONDERFUL!!! All the members are getting excited about mission work and helping us find them! I love the members here and it is my joy to work with them! They are so unique. Our branch might be small, but I think we have some of the strongest members in the church here. Their testimonies are amazing! I love them so much and it is such a privilege to serve them!
Also, we can't forget my sweet trainer Sister N. I don't even know what to say about her. She has been my ROCK this week! She always has my back! I went to go contact a family during a finding activity... this means I was contacting this family alone. I am getting better at Slovene so I wasn't terrified but I said a prayer and went in. It was going well... until they said something I didn't understand haha I was like, well .... what now? Immediately I felt someone next to me, and Sister N. answered their question and kept the conversation going. I almost cried. I felt so much relief. She had been there the whole time, watching me talk to a people she already loves. I am so glad I get to serve by her side right now. She is an amazing example to me! She has taught me a ton of Christlike attributes already haha. She is patient, and loves to laugh with or at me haha. I am loving being trained by her! It is setting me off on a good foot for the rest of my mission!
Ok so this week we had ZONE CONFERENCE!!!!! My first one! It was SOOO great! We woke up around 5 and got ready as quickly as possible so we could catch the train to Ljubljana. Elders D. and P. stopped at the bakery and got us breakfast! It was SOOOO good because it was warm that early and I didn’t realize how hungry I was. I am so grateful for the Elders! The train ride this time was BEAUTIFUL (because I was awake this time!) Seriously people, I am obsessed with Slovenia. It is so cute! Ugh I was squealing the whole way and I think everyone is now fully aware of my personality hahahaha. It was so beautiful! And the city’s so cute! Anyways zone conference was great! I loved being spiritually uplifted because sometimes actually always missions are spiritually DRAINING!!!! So it was nice to have someone teaching us and to learn. One of the best parts was seeing my old companions!!!! I love them oh so very much! Sister Redding just cried hugging me and Sister Rhodes just giggled at how excited I was that early in the morning. haha. It was cool to see how much we have grown! It was very comforting to learn that neither of them can understand people very well yet, but we all speak awesome. It was great!
One of the best parts about zone conference was getting MAIL!!!!! So for those of you that don’t know, my mission president (who is amazing and I loved seeing him again) lives in a different country than I do. All mail goes to the mission office (just in case we get transferred or move apartments) and then we get it. So we only get mail when we see the president, which is normally once a month, but for me since I am new I get to see him twice this month! BLESSED!!! He is great! Anyways I have only been here 2 weeks and so I just went with Sister N. to get her package and turns out.... PEOPLE LOVE ME!!!!!!! I had 2 letters!!!! Ugh I was just dancing and so happy! Madi wrote me. Sister N. will agree that I just about cried reading her letter it was SOOOO good to see her handwriting and get a letter from her.... I also got a letter from the cutest aunt! Jill and family sent me a card and some stickers! I love them! It was so great! Anyway I was so happy and everyone who got packages shared their precious American food so it was all around just a joyful time.
This week did not turn out as planned! We had 8 lessons set up.... and 7 fell through. So this week was again turned over to the Lord and we walked and walked and hiked and contacted and tracted. But, it was OK! We prayed specifically for one new investigator and we didn’t get that, but we did end up with a ton of awesome conversations and I knew Heavenly Father wanted that to happen so it was great!! One family we met ended up talking to us for about 30 min and we had the best conversation! At the end the teenage daughter started giggling at Sister N. and I and told us how much she loves our accents! She said she could listen to us talk all day! It made my day! Sometimes we will say Zdravo to someone and they will reply I don’t speak English hahahaha… We definitely have not mastered the Slovene accent yet! The struggle is real!
I think my favorite part of this week happened in the backyard of one of our English class students! She lives on top of the mountain (well actually, it’s a hill, but after hiking it to her house it is now a mountain... pretty sure it is an Alp!) next to us. The hike up was BREATHTAKING!!!!! I tried taking so many photos but nothing could capture just how beautiful this place is! It was perfect! It was raining, so it was foggy, and I just loved it. Anyway, we did service for this friend of ours. We helped her in her garden! FINALLY!!!! Ugh since it has been spring I have missed home so much and just dying to help in someone’s garden! (Yes dad, I love it) It was such a great time! This woman lives in the cutest cottage and her home is beautiful! Her yard is a meadow! I am in love with Slovenia if you can’t tell! She was so sweet and made us lunch after we helped! It was probably the best food I have had so far! She made a sauerkraut soup with ham and beans in it? It was wonderful and we were cold from working in the rain! She also made Palačinke (crepes) which is always a delight. It was such a great day and I really enjoyed doing service. Plus the view was perfect, so that was great!
The weather here was psycho this week. It was HOT at the beginning of the week and I got a sweet tan on my feet (haha mission tan life), and the very next day.... it was pouring rain, not as bad as Texas looked from the photos, but still bad! But good news! My rain coat and umbrella work like a charm!!! Good job Mom! Bummer though.... I kind of totally spaced on packing waterproof shoes... and cobblestone streets tend to puddle.... haha it was an interesting few days…So THEN the next day we were in our winter coats! But good news, today is BEAUTIFUL!!!!! It’s not hot or cold and it is sunny and we are going to the lake soon!! So great! I am laughing that there is snow at home.... but not too hard because I really don’t want it to come here! Good luck saving the plants at home! I secretly wish I could help cover blossoms again haha!
Well... probably the biggest thing I learned this week was how much I LOVE my family! We started out the week with a goal to contact and tract more families. It was HARD!!!! For the first 3 days literally NO ONE listened to us. Literally didn’t even hand out a mormon.org card. But, in 3 Nephi 26:11 it says I will try the faith of my people! And we were tried! Finally one night after a long (but lots of fun) day of tracting, I was writing in my journal and I thought...why am I even trying to find families? How does the gospel bless families? And then.... I remembered MY family and how blessed we are! I LOVE MY FAMILY!!!!! I get so much support from them every single day! I know you all are praying for me because I can feel it! We had the opportunity to watch the Women’s Conference this week! And all it was about was family! Go watch it if you haven’t! It made me want to tear up! My heart ached thinking about my family a few times this week! Really missing you all! But, I know you are all proud of me and supporting me! I love you all and hope I am making you proud! Tearing up over here.... I really do love you all!
I am glad everything went well this week with everyone in Texas! The pictures from Kimmy’s baptism made my eyes water! I am so happy for her and proud of her! We have a baptism this week in Slovenia that I get to attend and I am so excited! I loved seeing you all together having fun and celebrating such an amazing moment! How cool!!!!
Ok this might have been not as much fun as other emails, but I promise it was a wonderful week and I loved every second of it. I am so happy! I have never been happier! I feel so close to my Savior here and I am loving every single thing about being in Slovenia and serving a mission. It is hard and I have never slept better... but I am so happy. I hope you all have a good week! I miss you and love you!
Sestra Higgins
Other notes:
I forgot to mention the people I am around!
The branch is WONDERFUL!!! All the members are getting excited about mission work and helping us find them! I love the members here and it is my joy to work with them! They are so unique. Our branch might be small, but I think we have some of the strongest members in the church here. Their testimonies are amazing! I love them so much and it is such a privilege to serve them!
Also, we can't forget my sweet trainer Sister N. I don't even know what to say about her. She has been my ROCK this week! She always has my back! I went to go contact a family during a finding activity... this means I was contacting this family alone. I am getting better at Slovene so I wasn't terrified but I said a prayer and went in. It was going well... until they said something I didn't understand haha I was like, well .... what now? Immediately I felt someone next to me, and Sister N. answered their question and kept the conversation going. I almost cried. I felt so much relief. She had been there the whole time, watching me talk to a people she already loves. I am so glad I get to serve by her side right now. She is an amazing example to me! She has taught me a ton of Christlike attributes already haha. She is patient, and loves to laugh with or at me haha. I am loving being trained by her! It is setting me off on a good foot for the rest of my mission!