Yay for letters!

Yay for letters where the whole family writes! This morning I was having a hard morning so i'm thankful for all of you writing. I miss you people and I love you all!  So much exciting things happened this week so I'll write all that I can and then send you a letter with the rest. Aren't you all so glad that I feel like I have to share every detail with you..haha yay.

THANK YOU FOR THE PACKAGE! I just got the one that you sent to the Richmond Mission Office. I was so happy when Sister Huff gave it to me. She's so cute. She was like I've been taking such good care of it until you got here. And the first thing she said to me was "You must be Sister Szabo. You look just like Andrew." It made me happy. And she knows you Mom from you doing cards? I don't really know I just act like I know what's going on and it just made me happy to talk to someone from home. She's the greatest thing ever. She takes such good care of me.

So mission conference..SO FUN! The Bakers are the cutest things ever and I love them already. It was so fun to meet them. These are the people who will be my mission presidents for forever. Sister Baker shared D&C 100:1-8. So perfect. It even talks about the East and that's where we are. President Baker shared D&C 88:73."The Lord will hasten His work." and the TIME IS NOW. Such a neat thing to get to be a part of. He's asked all of us to read the Book of Mormon starting this new transfer and to read it in 2 transfers which is 7 pages a day so that will be hard but so cool to read it as an entire mission. I'm super excited about it. He didn't really change a lot of rules but he asked us to obey the celestial law of obedience. And he decided that the 4th of July was a no proselyting day so that was fun! He also told us that Sisters will be on bikes in our mission now, that we will not get to go to the NC temple, that they're phasing FB into North America first and that he raised his hand really high when they asked who wanted to volunteer first, we aren't allowed to wear backpacks anymore (good thing I just bought a new one last Monday..) even for the elders because soon all we'll be carrying around is a mini i-pad and our waterbottles but until then I need a new side bag so please please could you look for one for me? Wal-mart and Target have nothing that really works. I'll write you a letter today with more details of what I want and he ended with saying "There will be hard times. There always are. We have never read an adventure story without hard times and this is the greatest adventure of our lives." He's going to do such great things in the Virginia Chesapeake mission and I'm so happy I get to be a part of it.

For the 4th of July we had our normal study schedule and then we had to do weekly planning so we cruised through that and took a nap. It was the best nap of my life. After weekly planning I literally laid down right on the floor where I was and fell asleep. Then we went to the Brimhalls and I'm so happy that she e-mailed you. She is the best thing! I love the Brimhalls so much. They're taking such good care of us missionaries. Then we had dinner at a member in our ward. It was super thoughtful of them to invite us over on a holiday. After we went over to Sister Six's house and then we all went over to Sister Zondler's house and watched the fireworks. I don't think I can adequately describe what a neat thing that was. It's something that I'll never forget. I'm sitting on a dock, with a cool breeze so the humidity wasn't that bad, watching fireworks go off all around this lake, and I was missing home sooo much but I have never felt so at peace. It was such a neat experience. I'm so glad to live in this country and to get to be in Virginia to celebrate it. We also got to stay out until 10:30 which was super fun but I'm glad we don't get to every night. It was hard to wake up Friday morning.

Friday we had Zone meeting so this week was kind of crazy because we had to shove everything into Wednesday but it was good. At Zone meeting they laid down the law..haha. Basically the only thing that really got changed is now we can have as many zone p-days as we want according to the Zone Leaders choosing them and we can't listen to any music except that's produced by the church which makes me SO SO SAD. but I've been promised that if I have exact obedience that I'll be blessed so all is well. On the way into zone meeting we were listening to this song on the tribute to missionary cd and it reminded me of the first time that I heard it when I got here in VA and it was a mission changer for me. It says "We are here to serve our King, children of the Most High, This is good news that we bring, As we labor gladly bringing souls to Christ." and when I first heard that I realized that this is good news that we bring, that our gospel is a message of hope and that it's exactly what everyone needs so why would I ever be scared to open my mouth and share it. I don't want to have any regrets while I'm here. I'm on the most important errand of the Lord that I could ever be on. I was thinking about that this morning. I loved going on errands for you Mom and this is literally the most important errand that I've ever been on and I have 18 months to do it and although it's easy during that 18 months to be lazy and slack off, at the end of it, there is nothing that will make me more sad than to look back and know that there's so much more I could have done. The Lord has blessed me so much to know that this is where I'm supposed to be at this time in my life. So sorry, tangent, back to music, we can listen to EFY, the motab and anything on lds.org so I'm not sure how to get that but they said we could put it on a flash drive so maybe you could send me one? Or maybe I'll buy one at Wal-Mart today.

I can't believe that I almost forgot THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE PACKAGE FROM FAMILY CAMP. I cried the whole time I was looking through it. I have the best family in the entire world. If I had enough time and enough stamps I would write you all individually to tell you thank you. It really meant so much to me. Thank you so much!

I feel like I haven't told you very much about Sister Caldwell. She's super awesome. She's majoring in Childhood Education. I'm learning so much from her. We definitely have our hard times because we are so much alike but it's been the best thing for me to see what it's like to be on the other side of me when I'm ornery. I love her a lot.

I've been getting charlie horses and I wake up at night from them. What do I do about that? Or why am I getting them? Sister Caldwell said that it's because I'm low on Potassium so I'm going to buy bananas at the store today. They have Potassium in them don't they? And I do not do well in this heat. I'm really worried about the rest of July and August. I've been drinking so much water but the heat drains me and I don't feel very well in it but good thing the Lord blesses His missionaries huh?! Thank you for fasting for me. I definitely needed it and felt it.

J*** came to church yesterday AND SHE'S GETTING BAPTIZED! I'm so excited for her. She committed to live the WOW and she's doing so great. She's so excited for her baptism too. It's been so much fun.

There's this LA/PM family in our ward, the C***. They're the one where the dog was sitting on my lap. Anyway, I'm in love with them. I always feel so uplifted after we've been at their house. We're still trying to get them to come to church but I love them so much and they invited us to go to the Norfolk Naval Base with them because he's a retired Chief. I AM SO EXCITED. It's the largest naval base in the world AND I'M GOING TO GO TO IT. I'm pumped.

The P*** family, they're super awesome but a lot of drama and they haven't been coming to church so yesterday we went to see them and it was the neatest experience. such a miracle! We skipped our studies because Sister Caldwell really felt like we should go see them and then the Spirit directed us in exactly what to do while we were there. I shared a scripture from 2 Nephi 31 and then later felt dumb to share another scripture but it's from Matthew 11:28-30 which Elder Burke had shared in his departing testimony at zone meeting and it was EXACTLY what J**( needed to hear. It was super neat. The Spirit was so strong and she's going through such hard stuff right now but she has a testimony and we're going to get them to church next week. P.S. I have to speak in church next week. awesome. But Matthew 11:28-30 is super cool when you look at it as the Savior saying "Trade with me. My yoke is light and easy and when you think you can't go any farther, give it to me. I'll take the hard stuff and I'll give you something that will make it easier for you. I'll help you get through this." I love the scriptures. and I love the Savior. What a neat gospel we have. And what a blessing it is that we've been asked to share it with EVERYONE!  It's kind of overwhelming sometimes because at home I just assumed everyone around me was LDS and here that is not the case but the Lord is preparing people and He will put them in our path when we rely on the spirit to show us where to go, what to do, and what to say.

I'm out of time so I'll write y'all a letter. I love you all! Can you believe I've been in VA for over a month now? Crazy! I'm sad that I ONLY have 17 months left. I hope y'all have the best week ahead of you though and that you'll have nothing to fuss about. (You bet I'll come home with a new vocabulary and that I'm loving every second of it.) I

LOVE YOU! Pray for a missionary experience and I promise you'll find a miracle.

Love, Sister Szabo