Shout Hosanna

Wow so I am not sure what to write this week. I think I need to write down stuff that happens during the week that i want to share with you all so I don't forget them. But i had a good week and all is going well. I love physical therapy still because i think it's also emotional therapy! They play music in the gym and I got to here Taylor Swift! Yay! So district 42a leaves on tuesday and I am super bummed about it because they are the best! i love them all so much! All the elders in that district are going to chile but none of them are going to santiago north, they are going to orsorno and santiago east. So we will have a new district by next week and I hope they are just as cool! I seriously love my zone and am grateful for everyone in it. The district that came after mine is a little hard to get along with because they think they are the coolest elders ever but they are a lot better now. Then there is another district that will leave the next week after district 42a and they are also the coolest and the best ever! I am especially grateful for a couple of the elders yesterday in those districts because I was having a really rough day and i felt like I couldn't do anything and all the things I was excited for were changed and things just kept adding up. So elder goldrup wanted me to talk to him about my day and he is just the greates. I realized I needed to pray better and more often (i thought I was already praying pretty good) but I realized I could always do better! Then elder jones was talking to me about what sort of things we should ask when we pray. Instead of just plainly asking for the gift of charity, feeling more peace, or the gift of tongues, we should come up with ways the Lord can help us to have those things in our lives. Like when Jared or the brother of jared, I can't remember who it was haha, but the lord asked him how to put light in the boats so it is important that we work for the things that we are asking for and coming up with our own ways to have these things in our lives. Last sunday we got to watch the dedication which was super neat! Elder tom perry, Russel m nelson and elder packer were there. I loved the music and the hosanna shout at the end! Temples are the best! I also just learned about what the word hosanna means, it means "save me." In 3 nephi 11 they say the same thing when christ comes. Temples are super important in our lives, without them we couldn't make covenants with the lord to enter into the kingdom of god! crazy to think about! anyway so I think that's all i have for this week. i will try to be better and write stuff down to share with you all Love you! Chao

Lead By Example

um soo... wow i am kind of stumped right now on what to say for this week. I feel like it's been crazy! Mostly what i have been doing is trying to be the best example I can be to my district in studying hard and staying on task. I have come to gain a testimony that missionary work is the greatest work on the earth and that satan will do everything he can to try and destroy it. One way is by making missionaries distracted! It is super easy to get distracted and lose focus and what your purpose is. Satan is just waking for us to look his way and if we are not strictly obedient he will take advantage of that. D and C 10:5 pray always that may come off conquerer! daily prayer is super important in our lives and gives us the strength to overcome satan's temptations. Another important thing I have been learning this week is the importance of knowing the doctrine of christ which is being cleansed through christ, fatih, repentance, baptism and enduring to the end. The greatest gift that god gives us is eternal life. what is eternal life? John 17:3 eternal life is knowing the master and and if we don't have a very strong relationship with him now then eternal life won't really be the greatest gift. i know that the lord loves everyone of us and he knows us individually but we have to come to know him and find strength, light, knowledge, and comfort. We should always be studying the savior's life and trying to become more like him. I thought I was doing pretty good with charity and patience but I still have a long ways to go! it is easy to get down on ourselves for all the weaknesses we have but if we are trying our best we have every reason to rejoice and be happy and know that heavenly father will help what we can not do. We must have hope which is like our goal and then once we have hope we need faith which is our plan to reach our goal. We should always be making sure our plans are in accordance to god's will and that we are on the path that he wants us to be on. He will never lead us astray! Okay so my headaches are a lot better! Who would have thought that physical therapy would help that! Apparently I have been putting too much strain on my neck! yeah for studying too hard!! so anyway I'm doing some shock therapy thing and exercises that have been helping so much! i am actually almost on my way to my next appointment! Rachel thank you for that song! it was the best and I seriously want to hear more from you. and seriously write the elder back in my district soon! thanks love you:)

Where Can I Turn For Peace

So it is crazy to me how long I have been here. It feels like I have been here all my life but at the same time it feels like I just got here yesterday. It starting to get really frustrating being stuck in the same room all day everyday but I have found that if i study hard, then time goes by really quick. The MOST frustrating thing I have been dealing with lately is how the elderes y hermanas in my district get so easily distracted and don't do what they are supposed to be doing. I often find myself sitting in the hallway and studying because they are too obnoxious and off topic (i still love them all though) I just feel like I care more about what I am doing. we are on the lord's time here and i understand goofing around a little but not a lot! I have been praying for a lot of charity and patience though and it has definitely been working. So fortunately I am not sick anymore (i think) but for almost two weeks I have had a constant headache that makes me light headed, nauseous, and dizzy. My headache also causes my stomach to hurt! no bueno! anyway i went to the doctor yesterday and he just said i have a bad case of an ongoing headache so he thought it was best to give me a shot! It was called imitrex or sumatuiptan? something like that and he told me that i might feel warm, the muscles in my throat and chest might feel tight and where my headache was will feel like it's burning.....ummm who would ever want that?!?! anyway they had me stay at the doctors and rest for an hour and a half to see how i felt when i woke up. oh man i wanted to die! that stuff freaked me out so much and i was scared out of my mind cause i didn't know what was happening! I really don't like when doctors downplay stuff and the nurse pinched me when she gave me the shot which i hate! anyway i felt better when i woke up but now i feel the same but my headache just moved and isn't as painful. I am a walking tragedy! Seriously haha On sunday i was in the mtc choir which was awesome! we were singing where can i turn for peace and we really talked about what the words mean and compared it to when christ was walking on water and peter jumped out to go to him. SO GREAT! Notice in that story that peter asks if it be His will that he should come unto Christ. man it is great and then in the song when it talks about he reaches my reaching. Christ didn't put out His hand a little bit and say okay reach really far! you're almost there! he scooped him out of the water. In D and C 122:8-9 it says the son of man has descended below all things, art thou greater than he? No matter how low we get in life Christ can and will lift us up. Goodness this is coming to be one of my favorite bible stories and church songs! Now I just need to learn the song in spanish! It has definitely started to get colder here and it was freezing this morning walking to the temple! The temple is awesome as usual and we always eat breakfast there! It's like thanksgiving and we all look forward to it so much! wow, sorry if that doesn't make sense ha hopefully you got something spiritual out of it though! I will try and remember to send pictures next week though:) Life is great and the church is true! Christ is our Savior and loves us so much, I hope you all are trying to strengthen your relationship with him and he will help make your burdens light! I LOVE the gospel!! Lo es el mejor!

Emily's MTC Address

Hermana Stapley
MTC #351 Dep. 10/23
CHI-SATN
2005 North 900 East
Provo, UT  84604

Taylor Swift Status

I FINALLY KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE LIKE TAYLOR SWIFT!! I'm sure you all might have heard already but president brown (president of the whole mtc) called me up to bear my testimony in front of the whole mtc!!!!! and yes i kind of knew that it was going to happen all week! At first he called up another sister but she was either hiding or in the overflow so she was off the hook. Anyway I was super nervous going up and i didn't even notice that they were showing me walking down to the pulpit on the biggest screens you could ever imagine! Wierdly I was not nervous while i was actually saying my testimony but it was pretty hard to remember my testimony even though I was rehearsing it every night for the past week in spanish in my head (i gave my testimony in english though). The worst part was walking back to my seat! i was shaking so much and almost fell on the elders while going back to my seat! Oh yeah the day before that I got sick with a cold so throughout the whole meeting I was dizzy and zoning in and out in the whole meeting and when i went up i was totally sniffling and i asked some of the elders if they thought i was crying but they knew i was sick haha but they totally got it cause they said at the end it was a combination of tearing up and being sick. Such an amazing experience though! I am so grateful for that opportunity and now I am the most popular girl here and everyone knows me! It's the best! I almost freaked out though at the pulpit cause there was a monitor and I could see myself so there was a long pause haha So on monday i slept the whole day expect for lunch and dinner! i didn't even have a problem sleeping that night and slept like a baby. I needed that sleep so much! Now I am feeling so much better! 

So I have been so excited to share an experience and I hope that grandma gets to read this too! So when I got sick I was thinking a lot about why i was sick because i was pretty sure that when I got set apart the Lord told me I would be protected from illness but maybe i was wrong? Anyway so I was really distraught about this and thinking about it a lot. I finally decided I wanted a blessing so on Sunday night my companion and I went up to our classroom to wait for our zone leader so he could give me a blessing. A lot of other elders from my zone came up but elder gubler was nowhere to be found so I had another elder relay the message to him that i would like one in the morning. While my companion and i were walking back to our room for the night, she ran into her good friend from home and they always talk for forever haha so i sat waiting for them to finish when I just felt super weak and completely changed my mind about wanting a blessing at that moment and I couldn't wait for the morning. I went back to our classroom (which was down the hall) and all the elders in my zone were gone already... i sort of lost it and started crying because that was like the last straw. As i was walking back to my companion and her friend, her friend (Elder Murdock) asked if he could give me a blessing so I accepted his offer. COOLEST EXPERIENCE EVER! His whole district and my companion and I went into a classroom and all the elders surrounded me as they gave me a blessing. The Lord told me to fear not, and that he is with me and how proud he was of me. Then he told me that Grandpa wants me to know that he is with me and watching over me. It was so amazing and I definitely could feel him there. I know that the lord answers our prayers and that he truly knows us so well. i know that i have thought about grandpa a lot and wondering exactly where he was. It's amazing all the many blessings that the Lord gives us and the strength that he gives us to keep going. In D and C 84:88 it talks about how angels are around is to bear us up (I'm pretty sure that's the scripture!) Today I have an overwhelming feeling of gratitude for families. I am so glad that families are forever and that i have such a great family. Thank you for always being there for me and helping me be the person I am today! This morning I did sealings and there was one particular sealing where I could feel that person there and it was a neat experience. I love the temple! I hope that you all are striving to go on a regular basis because I know that is where I get a lot of my strength for the week. 

Mucho amor!
Hermana Stapley

Ps. While i am sitting here a bunch of elders have told me how they enjoyed my testimony haha this is the greatest :) Also Glenn. I am sitting across from a Jacob Beckert who said he knew you! Sweet! I have been chatting with him a little and he said you guys were good friends. 

Pss. DAD you STINK please write me. Donde esta mi familia?!! Thank you mom for writing me diligently your the best! Also I am sorry I keep thinking of things but i need my zovirax which you might have to get a new tube, sandals for the shower, and some pictures!!!!! i need pictures of all of you:) and mom i have written you like a total of three letters and I hope you have gotten the last two by now.