The blessings of Skype

Hello family!!! It was so great to see your sweet faces yesterday. I am sorry that the connection was so bad, but it was okay because we still got to talk and I got to see you. Thank you all for being there to share that sweet little moment :) Hermana and Hermano Balvin and my companion all loved being able to meet you! They said that you were all very nice and "lindos" which means cute. So that´s a nice compliment! I think you´re all cute too. Except that weird creepy card board cut out of me is definitely less cute. But that´s okay.

So since I just saw you yesterday I feel like there´s not much to say. But I wanted to tell you a little story about my companion. After I hung up with you guys, my companion called her family. My companion is so sweet, and from what she says about her family I´ve just assumed this whole time that they were all sweet. And it´s true! She introduced me to her family, (it was a little bit easier for me because I actually speak Spanish) and they were SO excited. Her mom started crying and kept saying "Thank you for taking care of my daughter," and her sister said the same thing "Thank you for taking care of her". Her dad didn´t say much (he made me think of you, daddy) but he also told me thank you. Her sister also said to tell you Congratulations mother for getting baptized!! It was so sweet to think that my companion had told her family about that, and when I met them over a little skype phone call, they expressed so much love for something that I sometimes think is so simple. For example, whether I love my companion or not, I have to be with her all the time. If I´m "taking care of her" it´s because we literally have no other choice. Now the good thing about that is that I really do love my companion, and I TRY to take care of her, but it´s something that her family sees in a very different way. It was really interesting, and it was honestly really touching.

As she was finishing her phone call, she talked directly to her dad for a minute. Her dad is a member of the church, but hasn´t gone in years. He didn´t want her to go on a mission, but told her that he always knew she was going to and that he would support her. As she was talking to him, she asked him really bluntly if he was going to church, even though she already knew the answer was no. She said "Papi, if you want to understand what it is that I do here, if you want to know why we love it so much, and if you want to be with us forever, you have to go to church." Then she bore her testimony about all of what she believes in, and they all cried, I think that her dad cried the most of all of them. 

I know that you know that I love you guys. I know that I´ve always been a weird, loud person that "eats a lot," like Hermano Balvin said last night. But seeing you and talking to you yesterday made me realize that I love you so much that there´s nothing else that I could possibly do to show it than to be out here on a mission. Being here, teaching about what I believe to people I don´t know everyday, is how I´m showing you that I love you. Because this really is the truth. God isn´t just a good idea that some caveman made up - He created us and put us here in the world so that we can know him and be genuinely happy in our lives. The Bible teaches us about Jesus Christ, and talks of a "restoration of all things" - the Book of Mormon is the evidence of that restoration, and also of the love of God for His children. I know that the things that I teach everyday are true. I know that Jesus Christ came to this world filled with pain, sicknesses, and sadness to save us and show us the way to live with Him and the Father forever, as FAMILIES.

I love you all so much, and all the skype phone calls in the world could never express it. 

ALL of my amor,

Hermana Michelle Christine Scott