The Week of Spiritual Instruction

On this week's episode of Sister Cale in Columbus-it was warm and then
it was bitter cold (but Sister Cale decided to resist tights or
anything like unto them), Sister Cale had all sorts of moments to be
grateful for everything she has ever learned about psychology, Sister
Cale found that she still has her skills in relation to making best
friends with the tiny humans (shout out to my new BFF Collin), in a
moment that was delightfully surprising Sister Cale realized that she
has missionary best friends at Elder Cardon's special Zone Conference,
Sister Cale and Sister Davis found out that they love the same
musicals and tv shows (#losttwins), Sister Cale and Sister Clark
nerded out over Doctor Who together, the sisters got to sing in a
missionary choir for Stake Conference, and weekly planning outfits
were among Sister Cale's more brilliant ideas.

Hello Loves!

Happy Thanksgiving Week! How is it that this Holiday season is already
upon us? I'm honestly not at all clear on how that happened. Isn't it
still January? It certainly feels like it outside here. I'm not sure
what the weather is like in your corners of the world. It would be
poor form motto tell you all how grateful I am for each of you. Your
support, love, and prayers mean the world to me and are so connected
to what I have been able to accomplish here. I cannot begin to express
what a miracle this experience has been for me so far. So many
missionaries talk about how they are completely different people
compared to who they were when they left. My experiment is similar,
but could more accurately be described as having found pieces of the
best version of myself. I'm still remarkably flawed and feel exactly
like myself, but better. So thank you for your sacrifices,
contributions, love, words, emails, prayers, and thoughts in my
direction. To some degree each of you has enabled me to find these
best parts of myself as I have been able to lose myself in serving
others. I love you all so much!

My major highlight of the week was getting to go to our special Zone
Conference. Something I have learned over the course of my mission is
that when we seek to receive answers to questions when attending
meetings that rarely will we not be blessed with them. Sometimes my
questions have been expansive and yet the spirit has somehow managed
to cover them with adequate answers. My questions on Friday were
intentionally rather broad because I had not yet determined even ideas
for how to navigate around these concerns. I was amazed and humbled by
the specificity of the directions that I received. God is so good. In
addition to all the direction and counsel that I received from the
spirit, I was always blessed to be able to understand and recognize
direction for me in the comments of President Daines, Sister Daines,
Elder Cardon, and Sister Cardon. I think one of the most significant
things that I came to understand was that charity, that perfect
Christlike love, possesses us only after we exercise great faith and
hope. Something that President Daines said that was an important
perspective changer for me was "the faith that got you out on your
missions, as great as it was, is not enough to get you home as the
person God intends for you to be."

I'm starting to learn how to be a missionary in a family Ward with
kids and youth again. Itis fantastic! I hope you all have a remarkable
Thanksgiving.

The church is true, life is good, God's in charge, and Satan hates you.

Love,

Jessica
Sent from my iPad