It's p-day, p-day!

Hello all!

Letters this week were pretty hilarious, I quite enjoyed them. For some reason it made me picture mom another planet, trying to send little messages through space to me :) Anyways, thanks to all my emailers!

Also, before i forget, HAPPY EARLY FATHER'S DAY DAD!

This was an exciting week for Bowmanville. They love "fests" here, there was a maple fest last month and this month's was a rib fest! It was on all weekend, Sister Casner and I debated going but decided a crowd of hungry people lookin for some ribs was not the best spot to try to talk to people. Sister Casner took it especially hard though, she said she never thought she'd miss a rib fest and I had to concur. At first we thought it was a rodeo, especially because they were flying Texas and American flags.

So one night this week we dropped by a member's home and talked with the wife for a long time. (Found out she served a mission in Denmark Dad!) She was telling us about some things her family had been going through the past few years, and then started telling us how she was starting a nursing program and it actually worked out really well because of all the hard things she had just been telling us about, it was really cool. She said "I was just telling my husband the other night it was a total Jacob moment!" Then she talked about how Jacob in the Bible went and worked for 7 years as a goat herder so he could marry Rachel, and ended up marrying Leah instead. So he could have been angry and refused to work anymore and left feeling bitter because he was supposed to be this chosen man of God, but instead her spends another 7 years working with goats to marry Rachel. During these 14 years he learns all about how to breed goats and cattle- with Rachel's father knows nothing about, because he never works with the animals. So When Jacob ready to leave he makes a deal that he can take all the brown spotted goats and cattle. He then breeds them so the majority of the herd is spotted, and so all the strongest are spotted. So he leaves to go back to his home with 2 wives and their handmaidens, a huge herd of strong cattle and goats, totally wealthy and successful-prepared to become Israel. So she said she'd gone through all these things, an active family with 2 return missionaries who are supposed to be taken care of by the Lord but instead they were really struggling. But what she thought was just a 14 year sentence to work was actually an opportunity to learn to breed spotted goats. I loved it, you see that all the time in missionary work! You struggle or have hard times, and you can get caught up thinking about how the Lord is supposed to be helping you and instead you're being abandoned....OR you can look at what you're learning and what the Lord is preparing, and eventually you look back and see that if it wasn't for those times you wouldn't be the missionary you are or teaching the people you're teaching. The Lord is always in control, we just need to be open to His lesson.

This is going to be a pretty rocking week! We're having another Sister's exchange, this time I'm staying in Bowmanville and Sister Casner is going to Peterborough. I told her it's way more terrifying staying because I feel like I have to know what to do the whole day, whereas last time when I went to Peterborough I just followed Sister Sutton around and had fun. But it'll be really fun, I'll work with Sister Williams who I don't know at all, so it'll be an adventure! We also have zone conference, and I'm finally out long enough that when i go to zone conference I'm expecting to see alot of missionaries I know so that's a fun feeling.

Josh, the 11 year old we're teaching, is in another city for the next 2 months because they're in the process of moving. So our zone leaders are actually going to teach him the next 2 weeks, but then he'll be baptized in Bowmanville on the 24th. So it's pretty weird not actually seeing him until then but still having him progress. Kathleen has put lessons on hold for a few weeks too because her family is going through some stuff, but she's still interested and studying on her own so it'll work out. We're finally going to meet with Lana again this week, so we're really excited about her!

Other than that, all's quite on the Canadian front. Glad your French vacation was awesome and hope you all missed me TONS :) have a fun week! Love you!