FEBRUARY ALREADY?!

February already?!                                                                                                                                    Feb. 3, 2014                       

 I can't believe I only have 9 months left...

I hope you have all had a great week! I surely have. I am so pumped about working with Sister Sites! This is the first time I have a companion who is the same age as me! She just turned 20 last month. She's from Twin Falls, Idaho. She's been out a year this month and is an incredible missionary! On the first day she was here, we were walking back to our apartment to eat dinner and we were talking about the huge snow piles everywhere. All of a sudden she pushed me sideways and I fell right into a huge snow drift!! Hahaha! I laid in the snow for a second, a little shocked, but then I just started laughing! She jumped in next to me and we sat there laughing for a while! I knew we were going to be good friends from that moment on :) We can also work hard together though. She's taught me so much and it's only been a week!

Austin is still working towards baptism, but Satan is working so hard! Why... Why does he want so badly for us to be bad?! It frustrates me sometimes. We've been talking a lot about faith with him lately, because that's really what it comes down to. He knows what he needs to do, he just needs the faith to do it. It's so interesting to see parallels in the lives of our investigators and my own. I feel like I learn so much for my own improvement as we study for them, teach them, and pray for them. Yesterday during the sacrament I was praying for Austin, and I just started tearing up a little bit. I want so badly for him to just take that leap of faith and see how much it will bless his life! But then I was reminded that there are leaps that I have to make too. It's so easy for me to see the blessings Austin will receive for being baptized, so then why is it so hard for me to take my own leaps of faith when I know Heavenly Father will bless me? It's a lesson learned over a lifetime.

I love fasting. So much. Austin fasted yesterday too and felt the difference. I learned something really cool in Relief Society yesterday that I want to share with you. The lesson was on being anxiously engaged, and one of the scriptures we read was in Matthew 22, about the first and great commandment. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment." I think that is what this life is about. Learning to love God, and then express that love in the way that He has asked. I was thinking about loving/worshiping God with our soul. I read under "Spirit" in the Bible Dictionary, and it says, "The spirit and the body constitute a mortal soul." So then I got thinking about expressing love to God using our spirit and our body and different commandments God has given us to show our love for Him using our body and our spirit.

When I was thinking about worshiping God with our body, I remembered an experience that I had a few years ago. All of you who know me well know how much dance is a part of my life :) I went to a performance done by BYU-I's dance company in July of 2012 and the show was called "Come What May and Love it." It was in the conference center theater in Salt Lake. A certain dance really stood out to me during that performance. It was a contemporary style, which is a really expressive kind of dance. There was a dancer in a black body bag laying in the center of the stage and the other dancers mournfully danced around her. Part way through the dance, the girl in the body bag climbed out and was dressed in all white. She went around and comforted the dancers in black. Their expressions made it obvious that they could not see her, but they were comforted by her presence. Other dancers in white entered the stage and comforted the mourning mortals during the climax of the piece. I was in tears. That was such a powerful experience for me, and I am so grateful that Heavenly Father testifies to us of the reality and divinity of His plan so frequently. And that He was able to do it in a language I understood and love. I am so grateful that we have bodies so we can become more like our Father. I am so grateful that we can use this gift to worship Him in return.

Have a great week :) The Lord loves you. He died and lived for you. Do something to show your love for Him this week. Not only this week, but every week! How about everyday? :)

Love and Prayers, Sister Felix

Here's a picture of my in a maple leaf! And this is Sister Sites :) She says hello!