Be A Sunflower

Hallo!!  So much to say this week! 

Quick recap: Monday night we had fufu round two with like double the Africans, so double the fufu, and let's just say that I think fufu is more of a one-time kinda deal. 

Tuesday we had district meeting, and then some family friends of Sister Abram came to pick us up and take us out to lunch!  It was so nice of them, and they were so fun!!  It was like a mini p-day because we took them on a little tour of the city, which was cool!  

Then that night I finished packing for Sister Abram and we got her all ready to DIEEEEE. (That's missionary lingo for "she finished her mission and flew home on Wednesday.")  

Mensch, I miss her so much! (mensch = gosh)  The mission lost its best missionary on Wednesday!!  

But my golden (golden = new missionary just out of the Missionary Training Center), Sister Howsmon, is literally the cutest thing ever!!  I was praying that she would be a missionary who wanted to work hard and be obedient, and that we would get along, and hey! Prayers work!! And holy cow, she has brought so many miracles with her! Thursday and Friday we did a ton of finding, and Sister Howsmon would just walk up to people and say "HI!!!" And then stand there awkwardly smiling cuz she can't speak German yet, and people would just be so surprised and laughing at how cute and bold she was that they would stay and listen me explain what we were doing!  So, I would say we're a good team! She learns super quickly,too!  So it's great being a mom (mom = training a new missionary) to an awesome little golden. :)

I wish I could write all the miracles we have seen in the past few days, but here are just a few:

1. We were walking down the street to the church and this man stopped and asked when we have church. So we told him on Sunday's at 9:30 and then he said he would come, and so we gave him our number and then he just walked away. We were really confused because no one ever comes up to US and says they're coming to church!  Well, he actually showed up!!  So random!  So we were freaking out and all happy and stuff, and then we found out that he's a member visiting from Russia...haha!  But still I am counting it as a miracle. :)

2. Stanley came to church, as usual, and brought his German teacher with him!!  He's already being an awesome member missionary :)  She stayed for sacrament and said that it was nice!  Unfortunately, she doesn't really have an interest right now, but maybe we can change that ;)

3. This African guy named Izu has been coming to church for the past couple weeks, and I guess he is a former investigator who had a baptismal date but then disappeared, but randomly has started to come back!  So we've been teaching him a few lessons here and there, but he can be a little frustrating sometimes and it's complicated to have male investigators here without elders because all the members we could bring for joint teachers live like two hours away!  But this Sunday he came to talk to us and said that he really wants to get baptized. So we had a lesson with him and made sure he was really serious about it this time, and we set a baptismal date for Sept. 18!!  There are a few hurdles and complications we need to get over first, but I think with faith it can totally happen :)

There are tons of others but they're too long to type. Just know that we are doing awesome over here and the Lord is blessing us a ton! 

This week I read a conference talk from April 2015 called "The Lord is My Light" by Quentin L. Cook. He talks about standing strong in our faith in Christ through difficult circumstances, and how we need to always follow the Savior's example.

"Like the young sunflower, when we follow the Savior of the world, the Son of God, we flourish and become glorious despite the many terrible circumstances that surround us. He truly is our light and life."

So, be like a sunflower! :) There will always be hardships, always be trials, and our faith will always be tested!  But if we simply face the light that Christ provides for us, we will always know that there are good times ahead, and that we can make it through hard things! 

Love you all and have a great week!

Liebe Grüße,

Sister Thunell

Good Things So Far This Week

The sun came out yesterday...

I noticed a sign on the bridge yesterday morning that reminded me to look for pelicans... and thinking about pelicans first thing in the morning is always the start of a great day.

We found the beach!

We played there for several hours...all of us!  Yep, I even got in the water and played with the kids.

I also found the world's most perfect umbrella and chair that I'm pretty sure were put there just for me.

Craig made it back to the condo on Monday night just in time to take us to Isla Blanca where we watched the sunset from a huge, beautiful jetty.

McKay fulfilled one of his lifelong dreams of standing on the edge of a jetty and getting sprayed with water.  (...yep, we were all quite surprised to find out that was even on his list.)

There are some cool Pokemons at the beach!

It was rainy and cloudy again today, so we walked 6,000 (of my recommended daily 10,000) steps and did some souvenir shopping.  Sharks are Emma's favorite so the girls had to get a picture with this giant one.

Eventually, when it stopped raining we walked to the beach and played for a couple of hours.  This cute thing washed up on the shore shortly after we got there.  :)

We combined our collective efforts and tried to build a sand castle, but eventually turned it into a sea turtle because we couldn't get the sand to pile higher than two inches.  
Design and construction:  Emma
Collection of shells for body:  Megan and McKay
Clever use of recyclable materials for eyes:  Me

I got the nicest anonymous text from someone this morning who happened to be visiting Germany and happened to take the sister missionaries to lunch.  Oh, I just love unexpected surprises.  People are so kind to missionaries and so thoughtful to think of their moms!  

It's been a mostly lazy, mostly relaxing two days on the beach so far, and I mostly love it.  Lots of playing, lots of sleeping in, no driving or running errands, no make up, siestas in the afternoons, and lots of Olympics.  It's been a pretty great week so far and it's only Tuesday!  

Quote of the Day:  

"I think these cloudy days are the best time to come to the beach.  There's no one here.  There's no sun so we won't burn.  And the waves are super wavy!"  -  McKay Thunell

Highlights from the Week

Hello everyone! This has been an awesome and crazy week! Natürlich Wie immer :) 

...so highlights of the week: (I will try to make this email shorter because I guess my emails are super long) 

Tuesday we made lasagna for a family from Columbia who are new in our ward!  They only speak Spanish, so we used google translate to write a little note for them :) thank you, Mommy for always making lasagna for dinner so I could try and remember how to recreate that for this Colombian family!  I think it turned out pretty good!

On Wednesday we did another Pokemon ausstellung, and it was more successful than last time, but still not as successful as we were hoping!  So we decided that we are gonna just go back to advertising about Jesus instead of Pikachu and maybe that will work better :)  We also had an appointment with a member family, the Kern's, and had another dessert competition!  We won with our ice cream sandwiches made out of chocolate chip cookies :)  

Thursday we had a couple of old lady appointments and then we went to MLC (Mission Leadership Conference!)  This MLC was seriously so awesome!!  I got to see Sister Fast, and I learned a ton, and it was just very spiritually uplifting, and extremely motivating!  Now all I wanna do is work, work, work!!

 Saturday was transfer calls, and I have been called to train a new missionary again! Woohoo! I wasn't excited at first because training isn't particularly my favorite thing, but now I'm super pumped and I've already filled her desk with notes and treats to start off her mission right!  Maybe second time's the charm and I'll be a better mom this time!  We also had an appointment with our Peruvian family, and Phillip has agreed to start taking the missionary discussions!  They're a family that I can absolutely imagine being sealed in the temple in a couple years :) so please pray for them!

Sunday we went to the Winkworth's for dinner after church. They are a family from Australia and I LOVE THEM SO MUCH.  They remind me so much of my family, so it feels kinda like coming home! It was so fun to be with them :)  We went by a couple other people and had a couple other appointments that day, too.

This week, I have been thinking a lot about the story of Job, and studying it a lot, too!  It is just amazing to me what Job went through, and the positive attitude he kept and his relationship with Heavenly Father. What a great example to all of us!  Heavenly Father has given us all that we have, and when He takes it away we can know that it is because we have better things in store for us :)  I have learned a lot this week about the Atonement, and keeping an eternal perspective, and the importance of acting upon spiritual promptings!  We talked a lot at MLC about how it doesn't matter if it is your own thought or the Holy Ghost, just act!  If it leads to a good thing then move forward and trust in the Lord :)  And I am so grateful for the knowledge I have that the Lord is in the details of our lives and always directs our paths!  He truly cares about even the little things, and I am so grateful that I have been able to develop a better relationship with my Heavenly Father out here on my mission! It's funny how sometimes we have to be sent across the world to learn a new language and have some hardships and struggles to remember and learn more about the Lord.  But that's how it has worked out, and I'm definitely not complaining :) 

Life here is great, and I am truly learning to LOVE everything more and more every single day. I think after nine months of being on a mission your capacity to love just increases so much!!  I mean I still get frustrated with people sometimes, BECAUSE HOLY CRAP JUST ACCEPT THE GOSPEL ALREADY, MAN.  But then I compose myself and love them anyway ;) 

Love you all and have a great week! :)

Liebe Grüße,

Sister Thunell

One Last Vacation

About a month ago, we received an invitation to an Eagle Court of Honor for one of Craig's favorite former scouts.  And since his family was so nice to actually send us an invitation, and since I SUPER miss everything about Allen, I orchestrated and begged and cajoled Craig into working out a McAllen business trip into his August plans.  

McAllen is no where near Dallas.  In fact, it's about as far from Birmingham to Allen as it is from McAllen to Allen.  So logistically, this trip makes absolutely no sense at all.  But I REALLY wanted to go, and I never want to go on trips, so Craig thought we should probably capitalize on that little anomaly.  

We had originally planned to leave Saturday, drive halfway, stay somewhere so we could go to church on Sunday morning, and then make the second reasonable length drive after church.  But, there was that dance.  And the girls had already invited the whole ward to our house for that pre-dance party.  And since I'm in the YW Presidency, I now get to carpool to and chaperone at those youth dances.  So we changed our plans, and made the whole 15 hour drive in ONE DAY...except because it's us, and because I have to stop every 20 minutes to go to the bathroom, somehow that 15 hours turned into more like 18, I think.  We left Birmingham at 4:00am and drove into our condo on South Padre Island at 10:30pm.  That's definitely the LONGEST drive we've ever done in one 24 hour period.  And probably the longest we'll ever do because there aren't many more driving hours you could fit into one day.  


The weather was not ideal.  It's raining everywhere in the southern half of the United States apparently.  We were diverted because of flooding in Louisiana, hit torrential rain in New Orleans and Houston, and didn't see even a tiny bit of blue sky the entire day.  

And there's a very good possibility the rest of the week might look the same... 

But even if we just sit in the condo and watch the Olympics all week with the beach in the background, it will still be a good week because there are NO responsibilities at the beach.  I'm not even planning on wearing make up for the entire four days we're here!  And since Craig will have the car with him working in McAllen all week, which is an hour away, we'll be happily stuck here.  

While we were on that long drive, Craig took us on a surprise diversion through Houston (which isn't my idea of a great surprise because Houston isn't my favorite place, but this one was kind of worth it.)

This place also keeps with the whole scouting theme of the trip, too, don't you think?  

Craig wanted to show the kids the giant wall of immortalized Eagle scouts from the Houston area.  He lived in Houston in high school and earned his Eagle in 1986.

We were all pretty impressed with that little sighting, especially McKay, who now wants his name engraved somewhere.  :)

Although it was a super LONG, rainy, tiring day, we listened to some amazing BYU devotionals, we sang our heads off (ok, maybe that was just me...) we caught a couple of Pokemons, we tried out McKay's new trumpet silencer (it works!) and we made it safely to our vacation home for the next four days.    

Now we're all just hoping the rain stops long enough for us to play on the beach a little before school starts next week...and I might be secretly counting the days till we get to Allen.  I might cry when we pull into that place and when I see all those people I love.  

Thirteen

Well, the last of my babies is officially a teenager today...  

I'm not sure what the significance is of having all of your kids officially past the age of 12, except that it means I'm a mom of older kids...which means I must be old, too.  But I don't really feel old yet.  Most days, I just feel like one of them, so maybe this just means they're all finally catching up to me.  :)

McKay is the BEST kid!  He's so happy and easy going and gets along with everyone.  He loves to invent stuff.  He loves to be outside.  He loves hanging out with his dad.  And he loves to EAT!  um...I have needed to significantly increase my grocery budget in the last few months.

There was a Stake Youth Dance scheduled for tonight, and since the girls wanted to have a pre-dance party, we celebrated McKay's birthday last night at his new favorite seafood restaurant.   He ate all of his dinner and half of Craig's...the boy is a bottomless pit these days.  

After dinner, we picked up his first birthday present...from the Verizon store...it's not that thing he's looking at.  It's just a new little flippy phone because he dropped last one doing a backflip on the last day of school...or something like that.  He did get his hopes up, though, for a minute that he was getting something more impressive.

We saved the rest of the presents for this morning to open while we ate the cinnamon coffee cake he requested for breakfast.  The girls got him Chick fil-A sauce and two t-shirts.  He REALLY likes Chick-fil-A sauce!  

Savannah sent some birthday wishes and surprises from Germany...along with a bunch of stuff she didn't want to drag around in her suitcases anymore.  My mom sent a new Aloha shirt from Hawaii, and the Grs sent some much needed new UT socks (University of Texas, not UTAH...) since his old ones have seen better days.  

We also got him the coolest trumpet silencer...it's like a mute, so his practicing is quieter in the house, but it connects to an internal microphone so he can hear himself.  

Coolest. Thing. Ever.  

I actually love listening to him practice because he's really good, but the girls don't always love it, and sometimes when we're in confined spaces or when we're traveling, there's not really a good place for him to practice.  Now he can practice anywhere.  Amazing.  

I think it was a pretty good birthday for him, despite the fact that his house was filled with a dozen or so older kids who were super loud and super excited to go to a dance.  They were so sweet, though, and lured him downstairs so they could sing Happy Birthday to him.  

Tonight, while the girls and I were at the dance, Craig and McKay went out to eat, probably for more seafood, and then they did "boy things" like shopping for canoes or camping gear something.   

I'm so grateful for McKay's energetic, happy, adventurous little spirit that blesses our family every day.  I can't believe we've had him for 13 whole years!  Holy cow, how time flies!  

Happy, happy birthday, to my favorite little trumpeter!...who isn't all that little anymore.  

New Places of Refuge

One of the most difficult transitions for me since moving to Birmingham has been finding ways to fill the nagging void that relentlessly creeps into my life when I'm not living purposefully and intentionally seeking the Spirit.  

In Allen, I learned where my places of refuge were...where I could always go to count on enlightenment, encouragement and the spiritual sustenance I needed to keep the opposition at bay.  

Of course, church is now and always has been one of those places.  I LOVE Sundays.  In Allen, I could count on spiritually uplifting, thought provoking lessons and talks and I always heard the Spirit whisper something personally relevant.  But three short hours a week of personal illumination isn't enough to sustain joy and stave off that pesky insecurity and doubt.  Seriously, it only takes about 48 hours for the light to dim, and that darkness to creep back into my head.  

On Monday mornings, usually still uplifted from whatever I had learned on Sunday, I would jump in my car and drive to Plano for 90 minutes of Institute.  Even on the days when I felt like a slug and just wanted to skip it, I would drag myself there anyway because I knew the Spirit would be there.  Too many times, when I thought there was nothing that could possibly be relevant about whatever passage of scripture we happened to be studying, Kevin Hinckley would start his "and thus we see..." conclusion and poof! the whole 90 minutes would have been for my benefit.  I can't remember a single class that didn't affect me in that way.  I learned after 6 years of Kevin's influence that when you take your stuff (your burdens, your longings, your questions, your heartaches, your frustrations, your weighty matters) to a place where the Spirit is, and you have a desire to hear personal counsel from Heaven, you will ALWAYS get it.  ALWAYS.  Sometimes in weird ways, but it always comes.  

Thursdays in Allen were my Temple days.  Sometimes I went with friends, sometimes no one could make it and I would just go alone.  Sometimes I would stay for a long time, and sometimes I only had an hour.  But I faithfully went every week because wherever my head was the rest of the week, the temple would always bring back perspective and clarity.  

Monday nights and Thursday nights I sang with two vastly different groups, but both brought confidence and improvement in one of the things I love most in the whole world...singing!  

I also had a challenging calling that required a whole lot of effort, planning, and studying the heck out of the scriptures, and I had the luxury of spending hours in the middle of the days reading and and pondering stuff.   

Living in Allen was like taking a  spiritual bubble bath for six years.  

My greatest desire when we moved there in 2010 was to be where the Spirit was, and to be able to hear the voice of the Lord in my life.  And that is exactly what I found.  

"The ability to qualify for, receive, and act on personal revelation is the greatest skill we can acquire in this life." - Julie B Beck

In the six years we lived in Allen, I think I acquired that skill.  

And then we moved.  

The thing about acquiring skills in the Lord's Kingdom is that you never just get to sit and enjoy the new things you can do.  There is really no sitting in the gospel at all.  And "thus we are seeing" with this move, those skills I desired and received I now get to do something with.  

When we got to Birmingham. I ached for my old places of refuge.  The Birmingham Temple is farther away and the schedule is much less flexible than it was in Dallas.  I have not yet heard of or found an Institute class here, although that doesn't mean one doesn't exist.  There is no DMCO or 15th Street group to sing with here.  And my cheerleaders are unavailable.    

Craig is the Ward Mission Leader in our ward, which essentially makes him responsible for all of the missionary efforts in the area ..finding lost sheep, building bridges, supporting the full time missionaries.  And since we have sisters in our ward, I get to help with a lot of those things, too.  The sister missionaries come to our house every Thursday night for dinner.  They meet with Craig on Wednesday nights at the church while the rest of us are at Mutual to plan their week and report on their appointments and upcoming events.  And we have also opened our home on Monday nights for any FHE activities they want to schedule with members of our ward, or investigators, or whoever they feel impressed to invite.  Somewhere in all that planning, Craig, the Bishop and the sister missionaries thought it would be awesome if I taught the Gospel Essentials class on Sundays, too.  

That sounds like a lot of planning, feeding people, and orchestrating things, doesn't it?  Yep, I thought so, too.  At first, I thought "I already have two callings, and that CSM one is currently kicking my butt!  How can I possibly also be responsible for feeding, supporting and nurturing missionaries, hosting weekly FHEs, and teaching every Sunday?  I will spontaneously combust!"  

And the first week I did.  

Holy cow, I could barely keep up with the menu plans and which guests were coming on which day.  This week, the calendar looked even more daunting because Saturday has it's own long list of things that have to happen.  (More on that later...)

But after Sunday's visions and illumination about my whole reason for being on the earth, it occurred to me that maybe these new responsibilities weren't intended to be burdens.  Maybe they were sent as answers to all those prayers I had been praying about needing a purpose in this place and needing to find some new places of refuge.  

Sometimes the planning and orchestrating gets overwhelming for me.  And sometimes I stress A LOT about the details.  But my very wise, always rational friend, Stephanie, reminded me that "what matters most is the Spirit people feel when they walk in your home."  So on Monday, when the sisters had an additional need, and I was running a little behind with the preparation for FHE, and I was starting to panic, I thought, "Do I really need to worry about all the stuff I'm worrying about?"  I didn't.  I was dressed.  Dessert was made.  The house was clean.  The rest would have to just work itself out.  "Did I want people to see me running around frantically trying to finish one more thing, and one more thing?"  Nope.  I didn't.  I wanted to just open the door and then be available for whatever happened next.  

I can't even tell you how much I loved that FHE on Monday night.  It was so nice to just talk to this little family and get to know them better.  I had no idea who was coming over or what to prepare for, so I didn't really.  I just opened the door and then sat down and asked them questions until they got tired of talking.  And they were delightful.  We had such a great night, and when they left, I felt completely filled with that same joy and clarity I felt after an Institute class or after the Temple.  

But, guess what...it was even different.  All those things I did in Allen were for MY spiritual benefit.  I usually came and went to those things alone, interacted with very few people, and put almost no time into preparing for them.  All that was required of me was to get in my car and drive somewhere and then let someone else's preparation (and the Spirit) feed me.  

With all of these missionary opportunities and teaching assignments and open house events, there is so much more effort required before I even get to the part where I start to feel the Spirit.  They're a lot of work.  But the JOY and FULFILLMENT after you do something that not only lifts your own life, but also potentially helps life someone else's is BEYOND anything I ever felt after leaving all those places I used to go for sustenance in Allen.  It's such an amazing thing.  And it makes all the work so worth it.  

Once again, I am shocked at the way the Lord answers prayers and brings our strengths together with our needs and turns them into His hands.  How grateful I am for missionary work, for the sister missionaries (my own and the ones in our ward,) for opportunities to serve that I didn't even know I needed or wanted, and for the fulfillment of being stretched beyond what I ever thought I was capable of.