Hermana McKay Hadley: One Day, Five Missionaries, and 146 Muffins

Hey everyone!!! I hope you all had an amazing Thanksgiving Day and you are all having an awesome time getting ready for Christmas! This has been such an amazing week here in the mission. I thought being away from home for Thanksgiving was going to be way hard but the mission makes it fun!

It all started Wednesday night, we had the bright idea that for Thanksgiving we should go around and visit all the people in our Branch Council and bring them something. Well, 146 muffins later we were ready to go. We spent that night and Thursday morning slaving away in the kitchen. Then the Elders called us and said, "What are you guys doing for Thanksgiving we don't know what to plan?" Because they are the Elders that work in our branch we made a road trip out of it by delivering all 146 muffins.

It was an awesome Thanksgiving that we spent with the Henao family. It was so great to be around such a wonderful family to celebrate. It was by far the best turkey I have ever had. Hermano Henao had been marinating it for 6 days.... It was heavenly! We went around to a lot of our ward members and shared the Christmas video with everyone and invited them to do the 25 ways in 25 days challenge. And that is what I invite all of you to do also!! It is such an awesome way to be more like Christ in simple ways!

So I need to share with you a little experience that I had this week where I kind of rethought my life a little but it was good because we all need those moments. Alright, so we have the great blessing of being fed by our members and I am very grateful for that but sometimes we get fed some weird stuff even here in California. One night we got fed Ceviche which is raw fish and shrimp soaked in vinegar. It was an interesting dinner and it took me a good 45 minutes to finish eating.

Then we went to go contact some people and it was raining and cold and it resulted in us sitting on a curb feeling like we were going to lose our cookies while hearing Mexican music in the back ground. It was one of those "What am I doing" moments. I thought about what I was doing as a missionary and I then started to smile. I realized even though I thought I was going to die, I was happy. Serving my Heavenly Father has been the best choice I have made. I have grown as a person and as a Child of God.

My challenge to you is to have a "What Am I Doing" moment. It doesn't have to be eating raw fish and sitting in a gutter in the rain that smells like weed (in a sketchy area that day). But it is always good to take a step back and make sure we are happy and recognizing the blessing we have each and every day. Thanks for everything and I hope you have an awesome week filled with Christmas joy and snow!! Love you guys!!!

-Hermana Hadley