Malmstrom, Sara

Hey!! As you can see from this week's title, I've made it halfway through my mission! Today is officially my 9 month anniversary. That is crazy!! And yes, I've been planning this email title since basically the second week of my mission. I've been sitting on this one for a while, and all I have to say is that I truly am living on a prayer. Many prayers, in fact. But just take my hand and we'll make it, I swear. Woah. Livin' on a prayer. Alright, all the iconic lyric-quoting aside, it's been a lovely week. Once again, I am so happy to be a missionary. I'm at a very peaceful point in my mission. For most of my mission I've wasted a lot of energy fighting feelings of inadequacy and wondering if I would ever be enough--converted enough, confident enough, social enough, you name it. But I'm happy to say that I've found a large measure of peace within myself recently. Of course I still have moments of doubt and feeling inadequate, but I can now con...

Hello friends and family!! I have been hyped to send this email all week, because our week was just packed full of goodness. We were going all week! I actually took time to write my email throughout the week instead of waiting until the last minute on Monday, so this might be a little longer than usual. Let's just get right into it! We had such a good lesson with the Gilberts on Monday! FINALLY! We talked about the Restoration, and Brother and Sister Gilbert said that it was pure inspiration that that's what we talked about, as they'd been talking about it and had wanted more clarification on some things. It was awesome! Sister Gilbert promised to start reading in the Book of Mormon immediately, and Gavin committed to praying tonight! They're all planning to come to church on Sunday, and I'm absolutely stoked. I love this family, and they're just so earnest and faithful! Please pray for the boys, that they'll be able to progress quickly and absorb everything...

Well, hey!! Happy Monday!! I hope all is well with you and your loved ones. I'm excited to talk about the wonderful week we've had over here in Henderson! First of all, I was still sick on Tuesday and was mandated by the mission nurse to stay inside, gurgle salt water every hour, and not talk for two days, in an effort to get my energy back before Zone Conference and to save my voice, which I woke up completely lacking Tuesday morning. So we did that. But it was well worth it, as I woke up feeling much better on Thursday and we made it to Zone Conference! Zone Conference was POWERFUL!!! I loved every second of it. It was one of the most spiritually uplifting Zone Conference I have ever been to, which says a lot because every Zone Conference is just phenomenal. We had some local service missionaries attend from the stakes we serve in, and the stake presidents all came and spoke with us in breakout rooms It was amazing! The Spirit was definitely present, and I recieved answers to...

Hey!! Happy Monday, friends and family! Regretably, but unsurprisingly, I procrastinated my email again this week and it's going to be very short today. I am sorry. But just a couple things about this week! First of all, in the chaos of last week, I forgot to mention that I hit my 8 month mark!! Woot woot!! We celebrated with some Cafe Rio and an ice cream sundae to finish off our night last Monday. We had a mini exchange with Sister Rigby this week, while Sister Volkel went to MLC! It was so fun being in a trio for the afternoon. I saw a cat use a crosswalk and it literally made my entire life  On Thursday we had New Missionary Training! We had the chance to do a session at the temple beforehand, and it was AMAZING!! It was so fun being there with so many missionaries, and being able to just focus solely on the Atonement of Jesus Christ and feel God's love and His power. New Missionary Training was POWERFUL. It went a bit long (two hours over, but what can you do), and it was ...