Hello wonderful Family!

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Begin forwarded message:

From: Megan Gwilliam <megan.gwilliam@myldsmail.net>
Date: November 30, 2015 at 4:52:33 AM MST
To: Denise Gwilliam <denisegwilliam@outlook.com>, Bruce Gwilliam <brucegwilliam@yahoo.com>, Kyle Gwilliam <kylegwilliam@gmail.com>, Lindsey Gwilliam <lindseygwilliam@outlook.com>
Subject: Hello wonderful Family!

Hey Family!!!

I love hearing from you SO MUCH! It sounds like you had the greatest week! And I am so glad! THanksgiving sounds like it was SO FUN! Oh, how fun to have family over! I bet it was the best. And hopefully delicious! We have one american family who lives in the ward and we guilted them into making us thanksgiving dinner thursday night. It was so great and all night they just kept joking with me saying how they were only doing this for me and hoping this would help me feel at home. It was the nicest of them and I am so grateful for incredible ward memebers. Build strong relationships with the ELders of our ward if you can. I didn't realize until now how much it means to just have members you can turn to! :) So hopefully it was fun to have them over this last week! Probably not as great or as fun as Sister Stephenson and I but im sure they are great! ;)

And mom and dad! You guys are the GREATEST! I got a call early thanksgiving morning here from TESCO telling me that the card hadn't gone through. I tried to get them to call you just to let you know that there were problems but the whole Idea of your number not starting with a 0 (all english numbers do) just really confused them and I eventually just had to cancell it. BUT THANK YOU SO MUCH! Even though the food didn't show up I just can't even say how much it just helped me have the greatest day still! It really is the thought and it was the most lovely thought and I just LOVE YOU! So thank you so much for thinking of me and cute sister stephenson and grannie annie too. You guys are the best parents and I love that you had that fun idea!! so It was a bummer the card didn;t go through but im glad you got the call and there weren't other problems with the card. Just silly enlgand making things complicated. BUT I LOVE YOU!!!! Thank you again! Just knowing what you had planned made it the HAPPIEST thanksgiving! :)

THis week was also really different becuase cute sister stephenson got dealthy ill. Fun english fact for ya: In England if you have the flu or a cold you are ILL - not sick. You are only Sick if you are throwing up! Kinda funny! So sister stephenson was Ill becuase she had the worst cold - we think it actually might have been the flu. But with that we were inside/ not working from pretty much Wednesday until Sunday. She slept a lot of that time and I HAD TO STAY INSIDE TOO. OH my goodness. THe first couple of days it wasn't bad. I finished the book of mormon for the 2nd time on my mission which was really exciting! I LOVE THE BOOK OF MORMON! I hope you all are still reading it as a family and on your own. Are you doing that highlighting thing I told you about from PMG? If you are not START NOW! i PROMISE it will change everything and help you understnad how incredible and powerful the book of mormon can be! So yeah I finished that, went through potentials in the area book, started reading the book of mormon again, organized the area book... yeah. it got a little boring. BUT it was great! I also started the New Testament. I have decided this next transfer I really want to get to know my Saviour more. TO really KNOW him. And so I decided that a good way to do that would be to keep reading the Book of Mormon but also read about his actual life and teachings from the bible. So that was exciting too. I also made her your yummy chilli mom! she LOVES it!! Thank you so much for the cute recipe book you sent over. I use it all the time and love it! THanks so much mom! But yeah. It was an interesting week because of having to be a missionary inside but it taught me so much.

Something that I have loved realizing and remembering being on a mission is realizing how much our Heavenly Father knows us and our needs. He really does understnad and care and his plan is just to help us and love us. The past couple of weeks I really struggled with just being incredible stressed. Which is SO WEIRD for me. I feel like i have always been a laid back, easy going person, but looking back I realized i was just a little bit of a mess. Just the idea of being a leader and so with that I was supposed to have a model area, I wanted to have amazing miracles to be able to share, I wanted these people to progress, I wanted baptisms, I wanted to be EXACTLY obedient, and talk to EVERY SINGLE PERSON, and more times than not I wouldn't measure up to what I wanted and then it would stress me out. It really hit last weekend and I just was praying so hard for help and peace and to help me refocus on what I needed to do and not let things stress me out. And then BOOM. I had a whole week where all I could do was literally build my relationship with my Saviour and have the time I needed to refocus. OH heavenly Father is just so merciful. This week was honestly exactly what I needed. I just had time to be in the scriptures and then REMEMBERING how loving and merciful he was and how he was always there to give me the peace I needed. I was able to realize that I was so stressed out and worried because I was all focused on me! I was trying to do this work so OFCOUSE i was stressed. there is NO POSSIBLE WAY sister gwilliam can do this work. I would fail EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. And so having the time to be inside i realized that I needed to rely on Him. THis is HIS work and HIS people and I am just here to do my best. TO be obedient and talk to people and do my best to talk to as many but when i fall short just try better the next day. I just really am so grateful for a merciful heavenly father who knew what I needed. So i feel super sorry if sister stephenson needed to get super ill so that I could refocus and learn my lesson but either way SO GLAD that i did! I feel like my head is back on strait and I am refocused and leaning on the Lord so life is great! im back to my usual self and just excited to go out and do my best! :)

This week will be a busy one too as it is the first week of the month so that means MLC and DLC again! So a week full of sitting in meetings BUT it will be wonderful! 2 weeks from now too we get to go to the TEMPLE! I CAN NOT WAIT! and then only 26 days until I get to talk to you!! OH I CAN'T WAiT!!!!!!! I love you so much and just can't wait to talk to you all! :)

And craziest ever. Grannie annie is going to america for Christmas - her grandson is getting married in the Las Vegas temple on december 29th so she is taking us out for our christmas present tonight - I guess we are going to this super fancy place to eat and having a traditional christmas dinner! Im super excited! But the craziest ever is we get to choose the main meat we have - like turkey or ham and all that sorts and guess what I chose? SALMON!!! I literally chose that and I SO EXCITED for it. Having it a couple times at members have made me love it and so I chose it. WHO AM I? I don't even know anymore. Haha! SO yeah. THe whole Salmon Sunday will be fine with me when i get home! :)

I love you ALL SO MUCH! and hope you have the GREATEST WEEK!!!!!!

Love you and talk to you soon! :)

Sister Gwilliam