Beautiful is a Feeling

Meet My New Companion:  Sister Morgan!

I'm so excited about the new members in your ward!  Not to be an annoying missionary.... but you’ve  got be their friend. You have no idea how hard we pray for investigators to feel loved and welcome in the ward. Especially right after their baptism, Satan is going to come at them so hard and they're going to need real friends to help hold them up. It happens so often out here that people get baptized and then fall off the wagon within the next few months. Go out of your way to do something nice for them! It will make a difference!

It has been a great week here in Pike County! We had the most amazing lesson this week with the W-------s family, the ones who the Pitt's have taught. First off, this week has been beautiful beyond belief. I feel like the land is matching my mood.  The first of this last transfer was cold and hard, but as time has gone on, spring has come. The days are beautiful, the weather is warm, and the sun shines almost every day lately. I've never seen such green! It looks like God took the most brilliant shades of green he had in his paint box and painted all over these Kentucky hills with them. It's breathtaking. I never knew spring could be this gorgeous.

Well, on Saturday, we were up at the W--------s house, at the very end of a holler. They didn't even have a phone until just barely! We were all sitting around on their front porch, their three boys, V--------, and J-----. There was a warm spring breeze and the day couldn't have been more beautiful. We sat around and all shared our favorite scriptures and our testimonies. I wish I could explain how beautiful it was. I could tell you what everyone said, I could tell you their amazing conversion stories, and the miracles they've seen, but I think the most important thing I can share is the way it felt. It felt like home. It felt like peace. It felt like I was where I was supposed to be, doing what I was supposed to be doing, surrounded by people that I love.

I've actually questioned lately why, when I feel the spirit, and when I love my mission the most, the words and thoughts that come to me are always, "You are exactly where you are supposed to be, Darcy." I've found it interesting that those are the words I always hear. Well, this week I was reading my patriarchal blessing, and it speaks of my mission. It says that I will feel more joy than I ever have by "knowing I am doing what the Lord wants me to do." I feel that. When S----- would talk, he would talk about "his walk with God." I fell in love with that phrase, well, first of all because S------ said it, but second of all because I'm finally learning what it means to "walk with God" and better yet, how it feels. I know very well how it feels to walk alone, how it feels to do what I want to do and not worry about how closely my will is in line with God's, but I'm finally REALLY finding out how beautiful it feels to do what God wants me to do and how smooth and beautiful and peaceful that is.

I've also come to find out that beautiful is a feeling. It's not how something looks at all, it has nothing to do with appearance. My mission feels beautiful. My mission feels like dancing in T----'s kitchen with the dog, B----, or jumping on the beds with Sister Pierson in a basement apartment in Lexington, Virginia, or learning guitar in a little house on a hill in Pikeville, or sitting on a porch and feeling right to the very core, that I am exactly where I am supposed to be. My mission feels like home. It feels like family. It feels beautiful, and I can't get enough of it.