Meetings galore!

Hola familia!

All the days seem to mix together this week so i'll just go through and tell you the important stuff! It's been a great week. I got called as the coordinating sister in my zone! Although we had two sisters leave this week, we are hoping more come next week. Basically my resposibilities include welcoming all the new sisters, giving tours, helping the zone leaders with all their responsibilities (keeping them in line) and meetings meetings meetings! I never thought it was possible to squeeze in one more meeting here.. but apparently you can sqeeze in like 10 more a week. It's so fun though, i love it! It's amazing how Heavenly Father prepares you for your mission before you go. I have used so many of my leadership skills that i've learned in school and in church. Awesome :) Mom and dad sent me a cute valentines package yesterday and it was truly inspired! I was asked to be the coordinating sister in another zone as well this week because they didn't have anyone called- they didn't have any sisters in their zone yet so they asked me because they had new sisters coming.-if that made sence. Usually the coordinating sister wecomes them and tells them all the rules and about the residency and everything. So I went to their welcoming meeting and gave them a huge hug. Sisters don't get very many hugs around here. I put together some candy packages and a card and helped them move in. They seemed really grateful. I'm glad I could help.

I am so excited to see sam!! It's amazing the tender mercies that heavenly father gives me. If i wasn't going to a visitors center, I would leave with the rest of my district on the 28th instead of my extra week of VC training, sam comes the 29th! So amazing how that worked out.

I had an impression to write this- Sometimes miracles happen or we recieve revelation or something maraculous, but satan wants us to believe that we are not important enought to have revelation.. but we are! As long as we have the spirit and are doing what we are supposed to, the veil is VERY thin and heavenly father is VERY aware of us. There are tender mercis literally surrounding us everywhere and we need to not only recognize them, but realize that they are because heavenly father is aware of us and knos every single detail of our lives. He knows every thought... everything! We are special and important to Him and we are His whole world.

We taught trino. The first sentence I said, trino didn't understand. I was about to get frustrated but I said a little prayer and said, "please help me heavenly father" I looked up and saw Christs picture. I literally got chills from my head to my toes!. He was there and he helped me. Our teacher later said that it was our best lesson and we really got through to trino and the spirit was definitely there.

Sunday was really good. We watched the spoken word andhad Carole stephens from the relief society board come to talk to the sisters, that was awesome. We taught our district about the book of mormon. In the spoken word, they talked about a famous painter that was diagnosed with arthritus so bad that he had to have a contraction to hold up his sheets in his bed because if anything touched him he would be in too much pain. Although the he was in pain, he would have someone stick a paint brush in his hand and he would still paint beautiful pieces of art reflecting happiness. Someone asked him why he not only still painted, but why his paintings never reflected his pain. He said, The pain passes, but the beauty remaines. I talked about this with the book of mormon. There have been so many pains and afflictions to bring the book of mormon to us. So many people died for it and suffered for it. Like the man said, the pain passes but the beauty remains. How lucky are we that we can sit down and litterally say.. heavenly father, please talk to me, and he DOES! all we have to do is open the book of mormon.  I have a testimony of the eternities and the book of mormon is the key to eternity. If the book of mormon is true, everything else is too. No matter how many times you've read it, take the challenge to ask heavenly father again if it's not true. Robert swenson spoke to us for the devotional and then we listened to another devotional by elder uchdorf during or "movie time"

 The rumors about the first  presidency coming for the 50th anneversary were.. well rumors. It was so amazing though. We stood in line at 2pm and the devotional didn't even start till 7.  Elder nelson and elder holland came and spoke to us! It was amazing. Elder holland gave a blunt but loving testimony of what it means to respect the history and honor it. He said he was grateful to be elder nelson's "jr companion" tonight. Elder nelson talked about the history of the Mtc and then rededicated the buildings! It was amazing being in the same room where an apostle was praying. I felt angels there.. maybe former missionaries.. there is missionary work in the next life too.. maybe it was them :) I felt it especially when we sang "behold a royal army" I'm in that army! You guys are too. So cool to think about. "what e're thou art- act WELL thy part"

Hope everything is going well for everyone! I lovvvvvvvvvvvvvvve letters, write me if anyone has time, thank you for the letters that have come! You guys are amazing and i pray for you at least 50 times a day :)

Seek for the eternal

La iglesia es verdedero!!!!

Love,

Hermana Cottrell