1ST WEEK!

Hi!!!!!!!

This week has been the craziest! Longest! Most Spiritual! week of my life! Even more than EFY I know, hard to believe. I have loved getting up every morning, and putting on my name tag. I love that everyone who sees me, knows that I am a follower of Jesus Christ.

Some stats for the week:

Number of Swigs consumed: 7

Number of circle k's: 3

Times I saw an Elder picking their nose on camera: 3

Number of times I've taught the first lesson: 7

Number of times I've felt the Spirit: 1345

My first day as a missionary, we had a workshop titled, "Welcome to the Work" and it was the coolest experience. There were 330 new missionaries on the zoom and everyone was volunteering their testimonies and sharing in the chat and I was just overwhelmed with joy and excitement for the opportunity for all of us to be working together, a part of the Lord's youth battalion, in sharing the good news of the gospel!! Every single one of us there was nervous and scared but it was so powerful to see everyone so willing to serve the Lord I loved it so much. My companion is Sister Woolley and she's the best!! She's from Orem, Utah and we get along so well I'm excited to for real meet her. She also was at BYU this past year and was living in the building next to mine literally 20 yards from me so that's insane. I loveee my district! It's amazing how close we've gotten just over the last week and over zoom. We spend lots of time together in all of our classes, and I continue to be so impressed and inspired by how strong each of their testimonies are. It is so cool to be in a learning environment where the Spirit presides and someone is bearing their testimony literally every two minutes.

My days this week have been long, but something my teacher told me has really stuck with me, she said, "Look at everything you have to do as an opportunity to show God you love Him." And after she said that, It became much easier to get up early, to spend hours at the computer, if it meant showing my love for Him. We have two 3 hours classes everyday and then an hour of Portuguese class as well. Those first couple of days omg literally insane. I need to know a million things!! in English!! and then in Portuguese!! super awesome for me. I was and am very overwhelmed to say the least. The Elders tho, are so okay with not knowing stuff and I am honestly so impressed. I'm trying my hardest to be like them for real tho. Me and Sister Woolley decided to work on humility and patience this week and I've come to learn their importance very fast. What has really helped me is to know that the Lord calls the "weak and simple" to do His work and that if I humble myself and have faith in the Savior, He will make "weak things become strong." And I know that "in His strength I can do all things." (D&C 1:19-24, Ether 12:27, and Alma 26:11-12) One of the best parts of being at the home MTC, is that I can talk to my family about what I'm going through! My mom gave me good advice and told me that I'm just going to have to be okay with not knowing things and bro wish me luck. I take great comfort in knowing that it's the Spirit that converts, not me, thank goodness.

This week we've been learning the first lesson and on Friday, Sister Woolley and I met with an "investigator" to teach it and it was the most terrifying thing ever I had the biggest sweat stains in the whole world. But it was such a cool experience even getting a little taste of what teaching people will be like. While this week has been so hard, the amount of times I've felt the Spirit testify to me the truthfulness of this Gospel has been too many times to count. I love this gospel and can testify that Heavenly Father knows and loves each of you, and I do too! I'm grateful for all of you and your support and prayers.

Love Sister Menden

1. Me and the fam 🥰 missing a few 🥺

2. The best comp ever

3. Besties

4. Me working out on max’s electric bike

5. Me in the office

6. Mallory after running 18 miles, me after running the last 1 with her