Hello everyone!
I am so grateful I get to email this week, so much has happened and I thought for sure I would be too busy and wouldn't be able to. Again, I apologize for the inability to write everyone back individually because I have such little time, but I am so grateful for all of your thoughts and prayers! They really work and I feel them everyday!
So here's a little update. I finally made it to Tucson! This last week was crazy in the CCM, I was so sad to leave my district, I've grown so close to them, but I was also so incredibly excited to finally start my mission. The goodbyes were hard though.
I traveled by myself to the US, as I had anticipated. I was having a little bit of anxiety about it earlier in the week because I was worried about the language (I also made a goal to hand out at least one Book of Mormon at the airport), but that just made me pray harder. I got to the airport at 4 in the morning, running on about 2 and a half hours of sleep. I had about two hours to wait for my plane to board, and I said a very specific prayer, telling Heavenly Father about my feelings of inadequacies in speaking the language. I just really didn't feel like I was courageous enough to approach a fluent Spanish speaker and start talking about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I was so intimidated. So I prayed for God to be merciful to me. I prayed that someone would approach ME and ask me about the Gospel willingly. After the prayer I closed my eyes, I was so tired, and dozed.
I was asleep for approximately 3 minutes when I was awoken by a man who came and sat down with me. His name is Raul. As we started talking, he asked me where I was going, why I was in Mexico, and how I learned Spanish. In answering his questions, we were actually able to easily delve into a very uplifting conversation about how Jesus Christ has helped us in our lives. He is a christian, but doesn't belong to a specific church. He has heard of the LDS church before and said it was good. He had heard of Joseph Smith before but didn't know much about him. At that point, he asked me if he could read the Book of Mormon that I had in my hand, so I let him read the introduction of the book right there in the Mexico City Airport. I was thanking the Lord throughout the entire conversation. He seemed genuinely interested, so I told him he could keep it. He was so grateful.
The Lord is so merciful. I am amazed every single day by the miracles I see in my life and the prayers that are always, without fail, answered.
Last night I spent the night in the mission home. Hermana Passey, bless her heart, made us all dinner and then we had a testimony meeting. Then they let me go to bed early, and I slept like a rock for a solid nine hours! Today we had my first transfer meeting. I have been assigned to serve in Nogales for the next 12 weeks, and my companion is a native Spanish speaker. :) I've heard that it's extremely difficult to learn Spanish here because almost everyone is bilingual, so I was really grateful to get a companion that will help me speak. I have no doubt in my mind that Heavenly Father has had a hand in the choosing of the companionships.
During testimony meeting last night, I was able to hear a testimony given in the beautiful language of Portuguese. Wow! What an experience, I understood every word! I am so blessed to have been called to learn Spanish, I thank Heavenly Father everyday for that opportunity.
I hope you all have a wonderful week. :)
Les ama mucho!
Love, Hermana Townley
Hermana
Stacie Morgan Townley 
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