Sister Macey Gates // Week Fifty-Three // " YEAR MARK!"

Crazy good week! First off we hit our year mark...oh my hillbillies time is going by way too fast. Its been such a great and adventurous year!! Funny story. So the other night we were eating with a member and holy cow she fed us a mountain of food, i almost started crying cause she wouldn't stop giving it to us. So the last thing she gave us was a piece of cheesecake, jello, and a bowl of tapioca or something like that. I had to figure out a plan to get rid of it. There was no way i could do it.  Hermana Pfeil went to the bathroom and she luckily finished her food. And Hermana Angles was in the kitchen, so i threw half my cheesecake across the table to Pfeil's plate and my jello on Ashby's plate. And then she still wasn't looking so i threw all of my cheesecake on her plate, well i ate a piece. We were laughing so hard. Pfeil was so mad, but she ended up not eating it. And thats how you get rid of the food you cant eat. This week, we helped one of our gators grandmas chop some of her tree down, it was pretty sweet.  We celebrated my year mark by getting ice cream at Baskin Robbins, Butter Pecan mom, i knew you would be proud;) We heard this awesome story of one of our members crossing the border, 8 1/2 months pregnant, jumping over the wall and sprinting for 5 min to the gas station. Pretty intense. We actually did Zumba with her this morning, i just didn't know if i was aloud to shake my butt like she wanted us to. This week we had time before our dinner appt. So we walked, we found these little black girls sitting outside,(so were in this ghetto area) And this 3 year old black girl just comes and gives me a big hug. She hugged me for about 5 min and didn't let go. My heart melted and i know she didn't have the best life.  I just wanted to hug that little girl forever. I definitely wont ever forget that moment. The other night we didn't know where to go cause our appt. had canceled, so we prayed. I felt impressed to go see a part member family. We had 2 options, on on one side of our area, and one of the other. We decided to go check one of them out more south of our area, they weren't home. BUT it was a miracle that we did choose that side cause we met an awesome guy named Rodrigo. He is a single dad, got a divorce and is still trying to get through it. He has a bible but has never opened it. He wants to change, he just doesn't know how. What a blessing it was to be in that area, to find Rodrigo and his kids. This Sunday was the primary program. All the primary kids dressed up in white. Talk about the cutest angels i've ever seen. The spirit was so strong. And then that night we had a baptism:) It was Miguel, the dad of the family we just baptized. What a special baptism to be apart of! In a year the get to go to the temple to be sealed:) Then we asked a recent convert Francisco to give the prayer... he's kinda interesting but we thought it would be good for him. So i'm sitting at the piano up in front, he gets up there and starts to introduce himself, then share stories/quotes from his bible book he got at Walmart. Oh my i have never prayed so hard for what i needed to do. Finally he started saying the prayer. Just gotta love those people:) Ashby got a call from president and will be leaving to Argentina next week! It makes me so sad cause i love that girl so much but she will be amazing:) Then we got a test from the AP's, they gave us a scripture to read: D&C 103:36. If that scripture doesn't make you feel good i don't know what does. Yesterday our zone had 5 baptisms! We are seeing so many miracles!!!!!!! I love this work:) I love you all and i hope you have an amazing week!

Hermana Gates:)