I was like WHAAATTT? That is just crazy! Kason told us that they stopped off in Arlington before heading off to the airport and he was just walking on the main road and saw some sister missionaries in the distance. He thought, "Oh that's cool!" Then he looked a little closer and realized that one of them was Mariah. So..he got his snapchat ready, booked it over to her and put his arm around her (OOPS!!) and said, "I need to take a pic with you!" and then he just snapped the pic. Right after he took the pic he said, "Now, I'm going to send this to Kayla!" and that is when Riah realized that it was Kason! Hahaha. Kason said it all happened so quick and Riah said the same thing. She didn't have any time to think. She said that she thought it was just a random person coming up to her to take a picture with a sister missionary. I guess there were some other kids with him and they were all like "You're Kayla Riddle's sister?" They also told Kason that he shouldn't have put his arm around her! He just said it was all so sudden and he wasn't thinking. No harm done. But wow! Such a small world! The crazy thing about it was that she can only go to DC to sight see once every transfer. So, it was weird that she just happened to be there at the same place, at the same time as Kason was in DC.
Before I go on, here is what she had to say in her group email.
"Hello all!!
Don't have tons of time today, but it's so good to be here another week in the mission, especially in having easter weekend with General Conference!! I love the leaders of the church! Such inspired men!!
Ok, so AGAIN. So much happened this week, it is just so impossible to give an account of it all, so I will just have to save lots of stories and things for after my mission :) Ha
Welp. We went to the Arlington Cemetery today and it was an AWESOME experience!!! We went and saw the tomb of the Unknown Soldier and watched the Changing of the Guards. It is awesome, those men are incredible.
One thing I would just like to touch on before I go is the subject of "grace". President Dieter F Uchtdorf, the second counselor of the First Presidency of the Church really went into depth and a different perspective of this in general conference than I have ever tried to wrap my mind around.
There are two HUGE things he addressed happen through grace. 1-the gates of heaven are unlocked, and 2-the windows of heaven are opened through grace. We should know of God's grace and try to do our best to understand it if we intend to inherit it. God does not just want us to stop at salvation, that is not the end of God's aims for us. He wants us to become like Him. An "unlocked gate" is not enough, we must choose to ENTER it in order to receive the blessings inside. Are we comfortable in our own deeds? In DOING the things we believe to be right, but just doing them and walking around mindlessly? Or do we realize our own helplessness and confess our faults--do we shed tears of gratitude for what He did?
It is my hope that I am more like the latter. I know we are all natural men, and we tend to do things according to our own will and pleasure, whether they be good or bad things. But there is always a BETTER. That better is SUBMITTING ourselves to God and aligning our will with His. "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak... grace is what enables us to overcome sin." For it is by grace we are saved, AFTER all we can do. (2 Nephi 25:23)
I promise that as we come closer to Christ through fervent prayer and scripture study, we will never be able to fully comprehend the magnitude of God's grace, but we sure can attain it by trying our best. If you don't feel like your best is enough, keep trying, because your BEST will ALWAYS get better :)
I love you all and pray that you will have a marvelous week ahead of you!! Remember that He lives, and He is here for YOU. #becausehelives (go look it up if you haven't seen the video, I promise it will pull at your heart strings, I know it does mine.. ;))
LOVE LOVE you all!!
Isaiah 1:18
Until next week,
Hermana Mariah Riddle :)
PS here are a couple pics of us at the Arlington Cemetery today.. the one with the 4 of us is the Herndon English Sisters that live across the way from us, and we are at the colosseum :)
The second one is just funny :) Pretty blossoms in DC!! You bet I ripped my skirt for that picture.. whoops!"
We have been getting so many fun pics and videos on the icloud. Not sure if Riah would want everyone to see all of the videos, they are so silly..haha, but I have posted some of the pics on Facebook. It has been so nice to be able to see what Riah is doing. Anytime she takes pics on her ipad they come through to our photo stream and we are able to see what she has been up to that day. AMAZING! Makes us feel so much closer to her!:)
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