Sister Amarae Huffaker: Tender Mercy..I Love My Family : Oct 12th

Hi Family:)

This is Sister Matealona. She is one of the sweetest, most bubbly, cute Hawaiian girl you will ever know. She is a sister in my care, and a part of the Monroe Zone. This is in fact the same sweet sister that you sent Christmas packages to last year. This past week, I had a very sweet and amazing experience with her.

This is what happened.

Last week we went on exchanges with the Ruston Sisters, Sister Matealona and Sister Syddall. Before we met with them, we prayed over who should go with which sister. After the prayer we felt that I should go with Sister Syddall. As part of the story you have to realize, I have been in this area for 4 weeks at this point. Anyways, Sister Syddall and I go to a few appointments and about in the middle of the day I ask questions about things that I need to be aware of or that I could help them with. She thinks for a second and says, "You can't tell Sister Matealona, she is too scared and nervous to say anything!" She goes on to ask me if my family is the one that sent the packages. (Completely forgetting until this point that mom mentioned to me last year) She continues by saying that she has more than her fair share of a very hard home life. I promised not to mention the details, but in essence, she has NO support from her family in Hawaii. She is discouraged every Monday after emailing her family. To add to this, receives nothing in the mail each day...which makes it worse when her companion receives a minimum of 4 a week with a package that never fails. She then says...Those 2 packages are the ONLY thing she got for Christmas. Sister Syddall says she still talks about them to this day and tears up about it. ( This was almost a year ago)

When we got home from the exchanges and they are about to leave, Sister Matealona says without knowing Sister Syddall just told me, "Sister Huffaker, are you from Mapleton Ut? " I looked at her and said quietly, "yes I am." and then she began to cry unbearably, giving me the longest hug with her head tucked into my arm. Repeating "thank your family for everything! They will never know...they will never know how much it meant."

...I know that you were inspired by the Spirit to help this girl. I can't express in words how much that action changed her. I have never seen such an appreciation and respect that I saw in her face as she realized that she was loved and thought about. I thought that ya'll should know how AMAZING I think each one of you are. I love each one of you with every fiber of my being. Thank you again for showing me what true charity is, the true love of Christ for our fellowmen.

Love,