"Cleansed by Fire"

Hey hey!

 

So, I've got some stories.

 

Preface: On my mission, my tastes have changed (I bet you're all shocked). I actually really like cucumbers now (yes, you'll be happy, Jenna), I have tried fish and shrimp (still don't like it), I like spicy food, and I eat other things I previously didn't like.

 

"Cleansed by Fire"

 

Sister Munson and I were making fajitas on Thursday night for dinner. I went upstairs to grab some letters I hadn't yet read, and when I came back down, Sister Munson was eating her fajitas that she had turned into tostadas and had smothered hot sauce all over the top of them. I saw a bottle of hot sauce by her place and my thought process went like this, "Oh, hot sauce! That sounds pretty good. And if Sister Munson can eat it, I'll eat it too." So I proceeded to pour a little bit of sauce on my fajitas and thought nothing of it. So I took a bite. And suddenly I was breathing fire. I drank my whole glass of water and ate a few pieces of tortilla. I continued to eat my fajitas, each bite only adding to the now molten heat in my mouth. After I couldn't take it anymore, I booked it to the fridge and gulped down some milk in between eating a few corn tortillas to stave off the unquenchable fire. I sat down and said, "Sister Munson! THIS IS SO HOT HOW ARE YOU EATING THIS??!?!" She just looked and me and said, "Confession..." and held up a Taco Bell hot sauce packet. I looked at the bottle of hot sauce and this is what I saw:

"To celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the founding of the company, I hav taken all I have lerned about creating natural pepper sauces and crated a blistering hot sauce without the use of pepper extracts. The top 4 hottest chilies in the world come together and create a true Chiliehead elixir worthy of the highest rating, 10 on a scale of 1 - 10. Enjoy!" (Psshaw, enjoy?! I thought the '10' was for calories or something...)

I looked at the ingredients and sure enough, red habanero was the second ingredient. So...  yeah. Turns out Sister Munson had taken out the hot sauce, but after being scared by the intense smell, she set it down and got a Taco Bell sauce packet. I then came downstairs and was deceived by the bottle. Deceived!

 

 

Another highlight was we went on exchanges this week. Sister Grover came from Stroudsberg to Whitehall with me, and I learned so much! It was faith-boosting fun missionary time. I learned that worry, doubt, and of course, fear are all the lack of faith. I had fallen into a trap where I was worried about the work in the Whitehall area and was scared to do some of the work. Sister Grover helped me realize that I wasn't showing faith, and she helped me realize how I could do that. First of all, faith is truly an action word. If I'm trying to ask an inspired question (a Spirit-prompted question that provokes deep thought), then I need to just start asking questions. By doing so, I'm showing Heavenly Father that I am trying my hardest and I believe that he will help me. And He will, but I have to put forth the action first. Secondly, stop worrying about how it's possible. Sister Grover said, "I just need to trust Heavenly Father's plan. Because face it-- my plan sucks and it will never work. But His will always work." So stop trying to figure things out how things are going to work, but assume they will. Because they will. 

 

Think about when the Lord commanded Nephi, Laman, and Lemuel to get the brass plates. Both Laman and Lemuel tried to get the plates, but failed. They tried to rebel against Nephi and go back, but an angel appeared unto them and commanded them to get the plates. They murmered and said, "How is it possible that the Lord will deliver Laban into our hands? Behold, he is a mighty man, and he can command fifty, yea, even he can slay fifty; then why not us?" (1 Nephi 3:31). They knew they needed to get the plates, but they couldn't look past the fact that Laban would try to kill them. Nephi, knowing that God can do anything, went back to get the plates, "And [he] was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which [he] should do." (1 Nephi 4:6) So just do and trust, because it will always, always work out.

 

On Friday there was a tornado warning (what?!) and it wasn't bad earlier in the evening. It got a little rainy, but around 8:00 we were driving and torrential downpours came out of nowhere. We on a dark, windy road and decided that if we could barely see at 10 mph, we should go in. We got SOAKED in the two seconds from the car to the front door. It was pretty exciting.

 

To finish off the week, we met the sisters at Ritas and exchanged back. We couldn't find our phone, and we realized that Sister Grover had accidentally taken our phone with her. So we totally sat and called people from the Ritas phone; it was pretty exciting. We're so lucky we're living with a member who has a phone, because it made it a lot less stressful.We had to meet back up in Nazareth again on Sunday to get the phone back, and earier Sunday morning we realized we had amost no gas in our car. You see, Nazareth is about 25 minutes away, so Sister LaRose drove us to Nazareth. It was an exciting week.

 

I love you all! Keep on studying your scriptures, and remember:

• Pray for miracles
• Expect miracles
• Give thanks
• Write them down

Love,

Sister Sarah Singleton

The Ingredients.