General Woman's Broadcast

this weekend was the General Woman's broadcast! we went to the Boston stake chapel in Weston to watch it. my favorite part of the entire meeting was during Dieter F. Uchtdorf's talk when he said "you can lift other's burdens while carrying your own". i think its easy to fall into this trap of self pity where you feel like you dont have the capacity to help anyone around you because youre having so many trials yourself. sometime we feel like our own problems are so huge that we have nothing left to give to anyone other than ourselves. we think that turning inward and spending the time focused on ourselves will fix our problems. but really the very act of turning outward, being lost in the service of others, can heal us mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. it was a good message for me to hear :)

so we had like a 30min drive home afterwards and none of us had had dinner before. therefore we were starving. so our plan was to hit up some fast food on the way home, but nothing fast food existed on our route home. so then we drove past this complex with a chipotle&olive garden in it. and we decided that was good enough. we parked and walked over to chipotle just as they locked the door... so then we were like alright olive garden. we'll get something to go. 

first i must explain that at this point it was 10PM which yes is late for missionaries, but we're allowed to be late on nights that we have things like general conference to go watch and havent eaten since who knows when... 

so we walk up to the doors of olive garden with this grand plan to get in and out and still home by 10:30 so we could at least be on time for bed. which actually did work out for us. anyways, what we didnt realize was that the only way to get food to go at olive garden is at the bar... so then four sister missionaries walked up to the bar. and i felt like the worst person in the world and it was so uncomfortable and i wanted to die the whole time! its funny cause if i wasnt a missionary this would be not a big deal at all. its just the whole representative of Jesus Christ standing at a bar late at night thing that made the situation funny.

in other news... i got emergency transferred this week! hah. except not really i just got switched to the english program. so we were in a trio (me, cope, goncalves) and we lived with the english sisters (watts, lee). but then sister lee got emergency transferred to a different area so i got moved to fill her spot in the english program. so im still in the same wards, same area, same apartment. just different language and companion. sister watts is a total sweetheart and im happy to be able to serve with her! and im sooo happy to still get to live with sister goncalves and sister cope :)

yesterday a boy in the portuguese program was baptized. his name is daniel nascimento and he is the tiniest 8 year old you would ever meet. he's like 2 ft high. i got to do the musical number for it and played "baptism". so that was fitting. after he had been baptized and was done changing he walked back into the room and yelled "Hey everyone! I'm back!" it was too adorable. 

sunday in general was a perfect day. literally everyone came to church. stephen reitter came who is an english ward investigator and he announced that he is ready to get baptized. daisy and geisy came - spanish investigators that had dropped off the face of the planet for a while. Father Peter- the Catholic Priest came to watch a baby blessing in the spanish ward. i was so happy! 

last piece of news for the week.  i met with a surgeon at MassGeneral to get her opinion on how best to move forward with my health. and she strongly recommended that i have surgery to remove my thyroid. so after talking to my parents and the Packards, we decided on that option. I'm scheduled to have the surgery here in Boston on Oct 24. the recovery is only a few days and then it'll all be over! good as new :) im really happy about this option and that its all working out. and im so thankful for my family and my mission family. 

i love you all :)

sister tantillo