17/18

Hey awesome people! Happy (3 days after) Spooky day! hope you all had an awesome October!

I am LOVING my mission (still) and learn so much each day and week. I have been so busy with assignments and other mission responsibilities that October seems to have been the fastest month of my life. So here is a recap of all the fun...

Interfaith: With my own desk, comes my own responsibilities. I have been working on a project that has kept me very busy this past month. I have been updating and making sure every volunteer is compliant with all the necessary paperwork. It's a big job but I love it! Also donations are coming in hot and "Santa's" workshop is almost needing a Sister Owsley organization day, which I am stoked about!!!

Habitat for Humanity: The amount of wayfair furniture they get donated is amazing! And I have put together more chairs than I have ever wanted to lol. But last week was a dream! This lady (my new BFF) named Pam came in and part of her job is to go to all the north county Restore locations and reorganize all the furniture, tell them to throw away the old gross stuff and lower prices! It was super fun to help her out and get that place looking nice and organized! 

Family History: For most of this past month we had a few other missionaries (My CWR friends) join us and we planned October Mission Conference. We have also been working on the new data rescue project. It is a little more difficult than clicking yes or no but we are all learning! Sister Hollman is my partner in crime with this project. She types EVERYTHING for me and is awesome at it! (added bonus she sang happy birthday to me this past week)

WEDNESDAY 10/23: Here is a little experience I had that taught me to ALWAYS follow the spirit, and taught me a way the spirit speaks to me!

Okay crazy cool thing that happened this week! A few weeks ago Sister Larson posted that Alexiana (a friend from my ward) was going to be coming home on the 23 and she wanted lots of people to greet her at the airport! My mom and I decided that we should go but forgot about it. My mom and dad went to Idaho to visit my sister. Wednesday afternoon I randomly remembered that Alexiana was going to be coming home that night! I went back and forth deciding if I should go, after my family history assignment I was still undecided so I prayed and kept feeling like I should go! But stubborn me I thought oh but institute is so much closer, I don’t want to pay for all that gas, and drive alone, finally after texting mama owsley she helped push me and said go! So I did! I drove like a mad women (obeying all the laws of course) to the airport and asked where she would come out and I am all ready to go... I don’t see her family anywhere so I just keep waiting and after 15-20 min I text her younger brother and ask if they are close but don’t get a response. 10-15 min. later I see on the board that her plane had landed and she will probably be coming out soon... still I don’t see her family. So I text again and nothing. I look at the passengers coming out and guess who I see! I quickly look around and still no family, I see her looking around for her family and then she sees me and we run to each other and I giver her a big hug!! After I look at her and say “I have no idea where your family is” and we both just start laughing. I am Facebook messaging, texting, calling doing what I can to try to get ahold of them as we go to get her bags. I finally text my parents, my bishop dad of course gets ahold of them and they are 3 lights away! After another 15 minutes her family comes down the escalator with balloons and a cute sign and all is well! It was such a crazy experience and looking back I have never had prompting that was so clear and repetitive that led to me being the only one there. So moral of the story I will never not follow a prompting because who knows you may be the only one who greets a return missionary who spent over 24 hours flying home from Russia.

Institute: It is alllll about families! Last week we studied Elder Hollands talk, "Lord I Believe". Something that my friends and I were talking about totally stood out to me regarding one of my favorite quotes in this talk which says "so if your faith is a little tested in this season or any, I invite you to lean on mine" We were talking and loved how Elder Holland is so compassionate and caring. Sometimes, as we have grown up we get people who tell us that we need to have our own strong unmovable testimony for in good times and bad. I 100% agree that we all need to have a testimony but lets be real, sometimes our faith isn't the strongest and we question things, sometimes it is strong and we really believe and know the beautiful truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ, sometimes we just feel like a flat line moving through life and aren't sure where our faith is, and sometimes we feel all of these things in 1 week. And guess what... thats okay! Elder Holland lovingly said that we can lean on his! we can also lean on our leaders, family members, and friends faith when we need some extra help to get back to our own. Lets never forget that we are all in this together my friends!

Old Town: Its getting Hot Hot Hot! And I know that it is November and Summer was forever ago. But for about 2 weeks we had crazy heat in the 90's and 100's and being in 1800 period attire is not super fun. Luckily I have been in "La Casa de Estudillo" and I would just love to personally thank the Estudillo family for building their home out of thick adobe and making a cool tunnel that gives a nice breeze for all of us melting volunteers :) Also I found this large super cute gift shop so RIP to all my money (Its amazing how much you can look at and buy during 10 min breaks:).

Camp Wildwood: Guess what's back, back again! WHOO I am soooooo excited to be back serving up there. We have built many bunkbeds and are helping scrape and paint a county fence that borders the camp! Yesterday we got to have a little party at our morning devotional, for mine and Elder Maslin's birthday! We had donuts (provided by the frosts who EVERY WEEK ask if I brought them donuts because I brought them one time haha), cake and ice cream...breakfast of champions! Also sadly the Kuske's (camp managers) finished their mission and are no longer up there. But luckily I got to go out to dinner with them and catch up (and they gave me lots of dating advice haha).

Other: I got to help plan mission conference for October and it was a total success! Besides almost having to cancel it because of fires it went so well and was tons of fun! we got to scrape/ paint the fence for our service project, then do some awesome team building activities relating all of them back to the gospel and our missions and finished with a delicious lunch! 

I also got to check another temple off my list and on my P-Day with Sister Dotter and Elder Gurr we went up and did a session in the Newport Temple! it was so awesome and beautiful and made me so grateful for the San Diego Temple and how close it is! (only 1 more week until it opens back up!)

Also thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday yesterday! I had a great day with family and friends, serving and celebrating!

You are a trooper if you read this far! Just wanted to say thank you for everyones love and support! I am so grateful to be on a service mission and for every experience I have had and continue to have. I am so grateful for this gospel and the light and hope it brings me always and especially after dark and hard days. 

Love you all,

Sister Owsley

PICTURES - last email i promise :)

1- mission conference! love these sisters

2- Interfaith with sister Dotter

3- Dinner with the Kuskes

4- Elder David Homecoming report

5-6 Birthday fun at CWR (how many people can you fit in an ATV?)